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 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 AND OTHER PROSE IMAGININGS
 
 All rights reserved
 
 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 AND OTHER PROSE IMAGININGS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHARP 
 
 Fio *m macc&ob Cps<ud -) 
 
 LONDON 
 ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET 
 
 MDCCCXCVI
 
 £3*f 
 
 Affectionately 
 
 to my Friend 
 
 George Cotterell
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Ecce Puclla I 
 
 II. Fragments from the Lost Journals of Pierb di 
 
 Cosimo -------- 47 
 
 III. The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Tear - Si 
 
 IV. The Sister of Compassion 93 
 
 V. The Hill-Wind 101 
 
 VI. Love in a Mist m
 
 NO TE. 
 
 " Ecce Puella" compi'ises all that the author cares to 
 'disengage from Fair Women, an illustrated monograph which 
 he undertook at the instance of the late Philip Gilbert 
 Hamerton, for the Portfolio Series. It has, of course, been 
 reworked into this, its essential for ?n. "Love in a Mist" 
 originally was published, with illustrations, in Good Words. 
 " Fragments from the Lost journals of Pier o di Cosimo" 
 appeared some years ago, in two consecutive numbers of 
 The Scottish Art Review.
 
 ECCE PUELLA
 
 To the Woman of Thirty
 
 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 "A Dream of Fair Women: Every man dreams this 
 dream. With some it happens early in the teens. It fades, 
 with some, during the twenties. With others it endures, 
 vivid and beautiful under grey hairs, till it glorifies the 
 grave."— H. P. Siwaarmill. 
 
 The beauty of women : could there be any theme 
 more inspiring ? There is fire in the phrase even. 
 But, as with Love, Life, Death, the subject at 
 once allures and evades one. It would be easier 
 to write concerning it a bulky tome than a small 
 volume, and that again would be less difficult 
 than a sketch of this kind. Who can say much 
 about love, without vain repetitions ? Only the 
 poet — whether he use pigments or clay, words 
 or music — can flash upon us some new light, or 
 thrill us with some new note, or delight us with 
 
 B
 
 2 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 some new vision. There is nothing between 
 this quintessential revelation and that unaccom- 
 plished and for ever to be unaccomplished 
 History of Love which Charles Nodier said 
 would be the history of humanity and the most 
 beautiful book to write. 
 
 What mortal can say enough about the beauty 
 of woman to satisfy himself? How much less 
 can he say enough to satisfy others ? 
 
 " For several virtues have I liked several 
 women " : and we may adapt Shakespere's line, 
 and say that for several kinds of beauty have 
 men admired women as different from each 
 other as a contadina of the Campagna and an 
 Eskimo Squaw. 
 
 I realise my inadequacy. I would have my 
 readers understand that if I were to write as I 
 feel, I would speak not wisely but too well ! 
 Fortunately, I cannot rhapsodise : but for this, 
 I might win honour in the eyes of ladies, and 
 concurrently a very natural outpouring of envy 
 and all uncharitableness on the part of my 
 fellow-men. Personally, I would have no hard- 
 and-fast dogmas. Fair women, be they tall or 
 short, dark or fair, vivacious or languorous, 
 active or indolent, plump or fragile, if all are 
 beautiful all are welcome. You, camerado, may
 
 ECCE PUELLA 3 
 
 incline towards a blonde, with hair touched 
 with gold and eyes haunted by a living memory 
 of the sky, small of stature, and with hands 
 seductively white and delicate : I, on the other 
 hand, may prefer a brunette, with hair lovely 
 with the dusk and fragrance of twilight, with 
 eyes filled with strange lights and depths of 
 shadow, tall, lissom, and with the nut-brown 
 kisses of the sun just visible on cheek and neck, 
 and bonnie deft hands. Or, it may be, I find 
 Ideala in a sweet comeliness : a face and figure 
 and mien and manner which together allure a 
 male mind searching for the quietudes rather 
 than for the exaltations of passionate life. You, 
 however, may worship at another shrine, and 
 seek your joy in austere beauty, or in that 
 which seems wedded to a tragic significance, 
 or that whose very remoteness lays upon you 
 an irresistible spell. There be those who prefer 
 Diana to Venus, who would live with Minerva 
 rather than Juno : who would rather espouse 
 Syrinx than Semele, and prefer the shy Arethusa 
 to the somewhat heedless Leda. Who shall 
 blame a man if he would rather take to wife 
 Lucy Desborough than Helen of Troy : and 
 has any one among us right to lift a stone 
 against him who would bestow the " Mrs." at 
 * B— 2
 
 4 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 his disposal upon Dolly Varden rather than 
 upon Cleopatra? 
 
 After all, are the poets and painters the right 
 people to go to for instruction as to beauty? 
 Most of them are disappointed married men. 
 Every male loves three females : woman (that is, 
 his particular woman), as he imagines her to 
 be ; woman, as he finds her ; and woman, care- 
 fully revised for an improbable new edition. 
 
 II 
 
 In the beginning, said a Persian poet, Allah 
 took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little 
 honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of 
 clay. When He looked at the amalgam it was 
 Woman. Then He thought He would resolve 
 these constituents. But it was too late. Adam 
 had taken her to wife, and humanity had begun. 
 Woman, moreover, had learned her first lesson: 
 conveyed in the parable of the rib. Thus early 
 did the male imagination begin to weave a de- 
 lightful web for its own delectation and advan- 
 tage. When, after a time, the daughters of Eve 
 convinced the sons of Adam that a system of 
 Dual Control would have to be put into effect,
 
 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 1 e>* 
 
 there was much questioning and heartburning 
 Satan availed himself of the opportunity. He 
 took man aside, and explained to him that wo- 
 man had been reasonless and precipitate, that 
 she had tempted him before she was ripe, and 
 that he was a genial innocent and very much 
 to be pitied. Further, he demonstrated that if 
 she had only waited a little, all would have 
 been well. But, as it was, the rose had a thorn, 
 the lily had a tendency to be fragile, the dove 
 had not lost its timidity, the serpent had re- 
 tained its guile, its fangs, and its poison, the 
 honey was apt to clog, the Dead Sea apple was 
 almost entirely filled with dust, and the clay was 
 of the tough, primeval kind, difficult to blend 
 with advantage, and impossible to eliminate. 
 
 From that day, says the Persian poet, whose 
 name I have forgotten, man has been haunted 
 by the idea that he was wheedled into a co- 
 partnery. In a word, having taken woman to 
 wife, he now regrets that he committed himself 
 quite so early to a formal union. From his 
 vague regrets and unsatisfied longings, and a 
 profound egotism which got into his system 
 during his bachelor days in Eden, he evolved 
 the idea of Beauty. This idea would have 
 remained a dream if Satan had not interfered
 
 6 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 with the suggestion that it was too good to be 
 wasted as an abstraction. So the idea came to 
 be realised. There was much hearty laughter 
 in consequence, in " another place." Seeing 
 what a perilous state man had brought himself 
 into, Allah had pity. He took man's conception 
 of Beauty — which to His surprise was in seve- 
 ral respects much superior to Eve — and, having 
 dissipated it with a breath, rewove it into a 
 hundred lovely ideals. Then, making of the 
 residue a many-coloured span in the heavens, 
 He sent these back to Earth, each to gleam 
 thenceforth with the glory of that first rainbow. 
 
 It is a fantasy. But let us thank that 
 Eastern poet. Perhaps, poor dreamer, he 
 went home to learn that unpunctual spouses 
 must expect reproaches in lieu of dinner, or 
 even, it may be, to find that his soul's Sul- 
 tana had eloped with a more worldly admirer 
 of Eve. Zuleika, if he found her, perhaps he 
 convinced. For us he has put into words, 
 with some prolixity and awkwardness no doubt, 
 what in a vague way we all feel about the 
 beauty of women. 
 
 For in truth there is no such abstraction 
 as Womanly Beauty. Instead, there is the 
 beauty of women.
 
 ECCE PUELLA 7 
 
 Every man can pick and choose. There are 
 as many kinds of women as there are of flowers : 
 and all are beautiful, for some quality, or by 
 association. It is well to admire every type. 
 Companionship with the individual will thus 
 be rendered more pleasing ! As the late 
 Maxime du Camp said somewhere : " In the 
 matter of admiration, it is not bad to have 
 several maladies." There are men who, in 
 this way, are chronic invalids. Women are 
 very patient with them. 
 
 I do not agree with an acquaintance of 
 mine who avers that his predilections are cli- 
 matic in their nature. If he is in Italy he 
 loves the Roman contadina, or the Sicilian 
 with the lissom Greek figure ; if in Spain, he 
 thinks flashing black eyes and coarse hair finer 
 than the flax and sky-blue he admired so much 
 in Germany ; if in Japan, he vows with Pierre 
 Loti that Madame Chrysantheme is more win- 
 some than the daintiest Parisienne ; if in Bar- 
 bary, he forgets the wild-rose bloom and hill- 
 wind freshness of the English girl, whom, 
 when he roams through Britain, he makes the 
 Helen to his Paris, forgets for the sake of 
 shadowy gazelle-eyes, for languorous beauty like 
 that of the lotus on warm moonlight nights.
 
 8 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 I wonder where he is now. He has been in 
 many lands. I know he has loved a Lithua- 
 nian, and passioned for a Swede : and when I 
 last saw him, less than a year ago, he said his 
 ideal was a Celtic maighdeann. Perhaps he is 
 far distant, in that very Cathay which I re- 
 member his saying was a country to be taken 
 on trust, as one accepts the actuality of the 
 North Pole : if so, I am convinced he is hum- 
 ming blithely 
 
 " She whom I love at present is in China: 
 She dwells, with her aged parents, 
 In a tower of fine porcelain, 
 By the yellow stream where the cormorants are. "* 
 
 This is too generously eclectic for me, who am 
 a lover of moderation, and a monogamist by 
 instinct. Nevertheless, I can appreciate this 
 climatic variability. I am no stickler for the 
 supremacy of any one type, of the civilised 
 over the barbaric, of the deftly arrayed over 
 the austerely ungarbed ! With one of the 
 authors of Le Croix de Berny I can say : " Dress 
 has very little weight with me. I once admired 
 
 * " Celle que f aime a present, est en Chine ; 
 Elle demeure, avec ses vieux parents, 
 Dans tine tour de porcelaine fine, 
 Au fieuve jaune ou sont Us cormorans." 
 
 {Th&ophile Gautier.)
 
 ECCE PUELLA 9 
 
 a Granada gipsy whose sole costume consisted 
 of blue slippers and a necklace of amber beads." 
 
 Nowadays, we have to admire the nude only 
 in sculpture, and that antique. M. Berenger in 
 Paris, Mr. Horsley, R.A., and a Glasgow bailie 
 have said so. 
 
 Well, well, it may be so. But there are un- 
 regenerate men among us. Perhaps this new 
 madness of blindness will supersede the old 
 intoxication. Truly, I am 
 
 " Oft in doubt whether at all 
 I shall again see Phcebus in the morning, 
 Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream — " 
 
 but I have no doubt whatever that others will. 
 Meanwhile we can dream of youth : the youth 
 of the past, the eternal youth, and the hour- 
 long youth we have known ourselves. It is one 
 of the sunbright words. These five letters have 
 an alchemy that can transmute dust and ashes 
 into blossoms and fruit. For those who know 
 this, the beauty of the past is linked to the 
 present tense : the most ancient things live 
 again, and the more keenly. Antiquitas sceculi 
 inventus mundi. 
 
 Well, sufficient unto this present is the ques- 
 tion of the nude ! Let those who will, ignore 
 it. Whatever these may say, there is always
 
 IO ECCE PUELLA 
 
 this conviction for loyal Pagans to fall back 
 upon — in the words of George Meredith — " the 
 visible fair form of a woman is hereditary queen 
 of us." 
 
 III 
 
 What a blight upon ordered sequence in nar- 
 rative, phrase dear to the grammarian, discur- 
 siveness is ! Yet I cannot help it : to borrow 
 from George Meredith on the subjecl of fair 
 women, from Lucy Desborough and Rhoda 
 Fleming to Clotilde von Riidiger and Diana 
 Warwick and Aminta Ormont, is as seductive 
 as the sound of the sea when one is panting on 
 the inland side of a sand-dune. In sheer self- 
 defence I must find an apothegm so good that 
 it would be superfluous to go further. This is 
 irrational perhaps : but then with Diana I find 
 that " to be pointedly rational is a greater diffi- 
 culty to me than a fine delirium." There are 
 Fair Women, and fair sayings about fair women, 
 in each of these ever delightful twelve novels. 
 Epigrammatically, The Egoist and Beauckamp's 
 Career would probably afford most spoil to the 
 hunter : but here in Richard Feverel is the quin-
 
 ECCE PUELLA II 
 
 tessential phrase for which we wait. " Each 
 woman is Eve throughout the ages.'" 
 
 This might be the motto for every Passionate 
 Pilgrim. For, truly, to every lover the woman 
 of his choice is another Eve. He sees in her 
 the ideal prototype. It is well that this is so : 
 otherwise there would be no poetry, no fiction, 
 and scarce any emotional literature save pas- 
 sionate Malthusian tractates ! 
 
 But now let me be frank. Out of all the 
 pictured fair women I have ever seen is there 
 one who has embodied my ideal of womanly 
 beauty ? This is a question that most of us 
 put to ourselves, with the same apparent arro- 
 gance, as if any one individual's opinion had 
 the least value for others, or had anything to do 
 with the Beauty of Woman. 
 
 No. Though, in pictures, I have seen a few 
 beautiful, and many lovely, and scores of comely 
 and handsome women, in no instance did I 
 encounter one of whom in any conceivable 
 circumstances I could say " There: she is my 
 Eve, past, present, and for ever!" 
 
 " I am always waiting," wrote Amiel, " for 
 the woman and the work which shall be capable 
 of taking entire possession of my soul, and of 
 becoming my end and aim." Yes, with Stendhal,
 
 12 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 we all wait : and one man in a million is re- 
 warded with "the woman," to one man in a 
 generation comes " the work." 
 
 What is wanting? Must the glow of personal 
 romance be present before a beautiful woman 
 can embody for us the Beauty of Woman ? 
 
 " Araminta's grand and shrill, 
 Delia's passionate and frail, 
 Doris drives an earnest quill, 
 Athanasia takes the veil ; 
 Wiser Phyllis o'er her pail, 
 At the heart of all romance 
 Reading, sings to Strephon's flail, 
 ' Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.' " 
 
 Cannot Araminta and Delia be beautiful, though 
 Strephon may prefer Phyllis ? Or is beauty in 
 women as incalculable a quantity as the delight 
 men take in women's names ? There are names 
 that stir one like a trumpet, or like the sound 
 of the sea, or like the ripple of leaves : names 
 that have the magic of moonlight in them, that 
 are sirens whose witchery can in a moment en- 
 slave us. What good to give here this or that 
 sweet name : each man has in him his own 
 necromancy wherewith to conjure up vague but 
 haunting-sweet visions. Equally, if all Fair 
 Women of the Imagination or of Life have 
 names we love, there are designations that seem
 
 ECCE PUELLA I 3 
 
 like sacrilege, that grate, that excruciate. There 
 is a deep truth in Balzac's insistence on the 
 correspondence between character and nomen- 
 clature. Still, there are many debateable names. 
 " Anna," for example, is not offensive, yet I 
 11 cannot away with it," though tolerant of 
 " Annie." But hear what Mr. Henley has to 
 say : — 
 
 " Brown is for Lalage, Jones for Lelia, 
 Robinson's bosom for Beatrice glows, 
 Smith is a Hamlet before Ophelia. 
 The glamour stays if the reason goes : 
 Every lover the years disclose 
 Is of a beautiful name made free. 
 One befriends, and all others are foes : 
 Anna's the name of names for me. 
 * * * * 
 
 " Fie upon Caroline, Jane, Amelia — 
 These I reckon the essence of prose ! — 
 Mystical Magdalen, cold Cornelia, 
 Adelaide's attitudes, Mopsa's mowes, 
 Maud's magnificence, Totty's toes, 
 Poll and Bet with their twang of the sea, 
 Nell's impertinence, Pamela's woes ! 
 Anna's the name of names for me ! " 
 
 But to return : everywhere pictured Ideala 
 has evaded me. It has been a vain quest, 
 though again and again I have caught just a 
 glimpse of her, a vanishing gleam, a fugitive 
 glance. The other day I was startled by the sud-
 
 14 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 den light in the face of Hoppner's " Miranda," 
 though when I looked again I was no more 
 than haunted by an impalpable suggestion. In 
 the beauty of the flowing drapery, in the breath 
 of that sea frothing at her feet, somewhere there 
 was an evanescent grace which belonged to 
 Ideala. Yet it was not quite hers after all, 
 any more than the indwelling beauty, seen per- 
 haps only for a moment, in the eyes, or revealed 
 in a momentary light upon the face, was hers — 
 the beauty, the momentary light in Miranda, in 
 the gipsy-beauty of her of the Snake in the Grass, 
 in one or two other portraits of a more delicately 
 refined loveliness, or of the higher beauty, that 
 of the beautiful mind visible through the fair 
 mask of the flesh. Long ago, says Thoreau in 
 Walden, " I lost a hound, a bay-horse, and a 
 turtle-dove, and am still on their trail." I 
 think She whom we seek rides afar on that 
 fleet horse, espied for ever by that flying dove, 
 for ever pursued by that tireless hound. 
 
 No doubt it is absurd to expect to find Ideala, 
 even among portraits of women who may have 
 been her kindred in the eyes of one or two per- 
 sons, who could discern not only the outward 
 beauty, but the inner radiance. Moreover, the 
 company is commonly not that amid which one
 
 ECCE PUELLA I 5 
 
 would pursue one's quest. Diane de Poitiers, 
 Nell Gwynne, Mrs. Jane Middleton, the Countess 
 of Grammont, the Comtesse de Parabere, " Per- 
 dita," Lady Hamilton, Mile. Hillsberg, Lady 
 Ellenborough, Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliot, 
 and Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, 
 were one and all charming as well as beautiful 
 women. But presumably Charles did not dis- 
 cern his soul's counterpart in Nell Gwynne, nor 
 the Regent Philippe in " la belle Parabere," nor 
 the amorous George in " Perdita," nor either 
 Prince Schwartzenberg or the Arab Sheik in 
 Lady Ellenborough. 
 
 In order to judge, one must know. We, who 
 do not know these Fair Women of the past, can- 
 not judge. We must each seek an Ideala of our 
 own. After all, as some one has said, women are 
 like melons : it is only after having tasted them 
 that we know whether they are good or not. 
 
 We must be content with some one short 
 of Perfecta. Unequal unions are deplorable. 
 Moreover, it is very unsatisfactory to emulate 
 the example of the celebrated Parisian bouquineur, 
 who worried through life without a copy of 
 Virgil, because he could not succeed in finding 
 the ideal Virgil of his dreams. Ideala is as the 
 wind that cometh and goeth where it listeth.
 
 I 6 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 Rather, she may be likened to the Wind for 
 ever fleeting along " that nameless but always 
 discoverable road which leads the wayfarer to 
 the forest of beautiful dreams." 
 
 Moreover, She may appear anywhere, at any 
 time. Remember Campion's " She's not to one 
 form tied." Possibly, even, she may be called 
 Nell Gwynne ; for to every Nell there will be a 
 lover to whom she will be Helen. 
 
 "Helen, thy beauty is to me 
 
 Like those Nicean barks of yore, 
 That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
 The weary, wayworn wanderer bore 
 To his own native shore. 
 
 " Lo ! in yon brilliant window niche, 
 How statue-like I see thee stand, 
 The agate lamp within thy hand ! 
 Ah, Psyche, Irom the regions which 
 Are Holy Lan>1 ! " 
 
 It is a pity that where a Helen is so evident 
 to one passionate pilgrim, she should be merely 
 Nell to the world in general. But so it is; and, 
 alas ! the very last person to perceive the con- 
 nection with Psyche is often Nell herself. Poets 
 get little gratitude, as a rule, for the glorification 
 they effect. Poor bards ! they are apt to address 
 as Ideala those who would rather be called Nell, 
 and dedicate their deepest life-music to a mis-
 
 ECCE PUELLA I J 
 
 tress who, while flattered, really understands 
 neither the poetry nor the poet, and can be 
 more eloquent over a gift of gloves than over 
 a work of genius. Thus hath it ever been ; 
 doubtless thus it shall continue. As long as 
 there are fair women, there will be strong men 
 ready to lose their highest heritage for a mess 
 of pottage. As among the innumerable kinds 
 of flowers where the bee may roam and gather 
 honey there is that flower of Trebizond whose 
 fatal blooms allure the unwitting insect to mad- 
 ness or death, so among women there are some 
 who irresponsibly lure men to sure calamity. 
 Who was the man who said that fair women 
 are fair demons who make us enter hell through 
 the door of paradise ? Doubtless he loved a 
 flower of Trebizond. Idealists, ponder ! 
 
 Nevertheless, though we would not naturally 
 seek Ideala among the Nell Gwynnes, it would 
 be a mistake to rise to the high remote air 
 where dwell the saints who have not yet tran- 
 scended mortality. A touch of sin must be in 
 that man whom we hail as brother, that woman 
 we greet as sister. There was shrewd worldly 
 wisdom in the remark of a French prince, that, 
 however virtuous a woman may be, a compli- 
 ment on her virtue is what gives her the least 
 
 c
 
 I 8 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 pleasure. Concurrently we may take that 
 instructive passage in Cunningham's British 
 Painters where we learn how Hoppner com- 
 plained of the painted ladies of Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence ; that they showed "a gaudy disso- 
 luteness of taste, and sometimes trespassed on 
 moral as well as professional chastity," while 
 by implication he claimed for his own portraits 
 purity of look as well as purity of style : with 
 this result—" Nor is it the least curious part of 
 this story, that the ladies, from the moment of 
 the sarcasm of Hoppner, instead of crowding 
 to the easel of him who dealt in the loveliness 
 of virtue, showed a growing preference for the 
 rival who ' trespassed on moral as well as on 
 professional chastity.' " 
 
 Women should not be wroth with men be- 
 cause that each male, sound of heart and brain, 
 is a Ponce da Leon. Parenthetically, let me 
 add — on the authority of Arsene Houssaye ! — 
 that all the energies of Creation do not succeed 
 in producing throughout the whole world one 
 hundred grandes dames yearly. And how many 
 of these die as little girls — how few attain to 
 " la beaute souveraine du corps et de Fame " ? 
 " Voila," he adds — " voila pourquoi la grande 
 dame est une oiseau rare. Ou est le merle
 
 ECCE PUELLA 1 9 
 
 blanc ? " " The Quest of the White Black- 
 bird": fair women, ponder this significant 
 phrase. We all seek the Fountain of Youth, 
 the Golden Isles, Avalon, Woman (as distinct 
 from the fairest of women), Ideala, or whatever 
 sunbright word or words we cap our quest with. 
 If wives could but know it, they have more 
 cause to be jealous of women who have never 
 lived than of any rival " young i' the white and 
 red." Yet, paradoxically, with a true man, a 
 wife, if she be a true woman, need never turn 
 her back upon the impalpable Dream ; for, after 
 all, it is her counterpart, a rainbow-phantom. 
 
 Fair women, all men are not travailing with 
 love of you ! There are Galileos who would 
 say e pur se muove, though Woman suddenly 
 became passee, nay, though she became a by 
 no means indispensable adjunct. It is even 
 possible there are base ones among us who 
 may envy the Australian god Pundjel, who 
 has a wife whom he may not see ! 
 
 Alas, Fair Women only laugh when they 
 behold Man going solitary to the tune of 
 
 " O ! were there an island, 
 Though ever so wild, 
 Where women might smile, and 
 No man be beguiled I " 
 
 C — 2
 
 20 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 IV 
 
 It is not often that pi(fture-gallery catalogues 
 contain either humour or philosophy. There 
 is a naive humour, a genial philosophy, in the 
 prefatory note to that of a recent Exhibition. 
 " As," so the note runs, " there are indeed cer- 
 tain pictures of Women, possibly more celebra- 
 ted for their historical interest, their influence, 
 or their wit, than for their beauty, some excep- 
 tion has been taken to the title of the Exhibition. 
 The directors, however, do not know of any 
 fixed standard by which such pictures can be 
 judged, and, further, they believe that in the 
 eyes of some one person, at least, every woman 
 has been considered fair." 
 
 Whereupon I hum to myself the quatrain 
 from the old north-country nursery-ballad of 
 " Rashin Coatie"— 
 
 "There was a king and a queen, 
 As mony ane's been ; 
 Few have we seen, 
 As few may we see." 
 
 Alas ! there are so many queens of beauty on 
 the walls of piclure galleries, and yet one's 
 heart stays secure from any one of them ! But, 
 suddenly, I remember a favourite couplet, by 
 Campion,
 
 ECCE PUELLA 2 1 
 
 " Beauty must be scorned in none, 
 Though but truly served in one " — 
 
 and, having thought of and quoted that sweet 
 singer, must needs go right through three stan- 
 zas of his, memorable even in the ever-new 
 wealth of Elizabethan love-songs. 
 
 " Give beauty all her right ! 
 
 She's not to one form tied; 
 Each shape yields fair delight, 
 
 Where her perfections bide : 
 Helen, I grant, might pleasing be, 
 And Ros'mond was as sweet as she. 
 
 " Some the quick eye commends, 
 
 Some swelling lips and red ; 
 Pale looks have many friends, 
 
 Through sacred sweetness bred : 
 Meadows have flowers that pleasures move, 
 Though roses are the flower of love. 
 
 " Free beauty is not bound 
 To one unmoved clime ; 
 She visits every ground, 
 
 And favours every time. 
 Let the old lords with mine compare; 
 My Sovereign is as sweet and fair." 
 
 There; all that is to be said about Fair 
 Women, or the Beauty of Women, is com- 
 pressed into six short lines. This intangible 
 beauty is a citizen of the world, and has her 
 home in Cathay as well as Europe. No one age
 
 22 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 claims her, and Helen of Troy takes hands with 
 Aspasia, and they smile across the years to 
 Lucrezia Borgia and Diane de Poitiers, who, 
 looking forward, see the lovely light reflected 
 in la belle Hamilton ; and so down to our own 
 day. And then, once more, Eve individualised 
 for ever and ever ; a challenge to all the world 
 to bring forward one sweeter and fairer than 
 " my Sovereign." 
 
 In other words, " each woman is Eve through- 
 out the ages." There are many Audreys, alas 
 — indeed sometimes, within a square mile even, 
 there seems to be an epidemic of Audreys ! — 
 but a far-seeing Providence has created many 
 Touchstones. So we will believe that in the 
 eyes of at least one person each woman has 
 been considered fair : though, to be truthful, 
 " a man may, if he were of a fearful heart, 
 stagger in this attempt," as saith the blithe fool 
 of Arden himself. 
 
 After all, these clowns and wenches in As 
 You Like It are nearer the poetry of truth than 
 that cynical prose of fin-de-siecle sentiment, of 
 which this is an example : — 
 
 Lady (looking at a sketch, then at the Artist)* 
 *' So : — this is your ideal woman ? " 
 
 Artist. " It was."
 
 ECCE PUELLA 23 
 
 Lady. " Then you have changed ? " 
 
 Artist. " Yes. I met her." 
 
 As a matter of fact, men who have nothing 
 of the ideal in them are, in the eyes of true 
 women, as a sunless summer. These women, 
 like Clara Middleton of " the fine-pointed 
 brain," have a contempt for the male brain 
 " chewing the cud in the happy pastures of 
 unawakedness." 
 
 Women, plain or fair, do not readily forgive. 
 Man should remember this, when he acts upon 
 what he considers his hereditary right to joke 
 upon the frailties of his enslaved goddess. He 
 is apt to think that they are reasonless in the 
 matter of their looks, forgetful that marriage is 
 a salve to all prenuptial display ! They do not 
 mind back-handed compliments : they will smile 
 at Victor Hugo when he says that woman is a 
 perfected devil ; they have a caress in their 
 heart for Gavarni when he whispers that one 
 of the sweetest pleasures of a woman is to 
 cause regret ; and they take a malicious enter- 
 tainment in the declaration of a man of the 
 world like Langree, that modesty in a woman 
 is a virtue most deserving, since we men do all 
 we can to cure her of it. But they will not 
 forgive Montaigne himself when he affirms that
 
 24 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 there is no torture a woman would not suffer to 
 enhance her beauty. 
 
 "Unfolded only out of the illimitable poem of Woman can 
 come the poems of man." 
 
 Thus Walt Whitman. But he does not tell 
 us how variously the poets scan that Poem. 
 What would be the result of a plebiscite among 
 civilised women themselves : if they were given 
 by the Powers that Be the option to be beauti- 
 ful, to be fascinating, or to be winsome ? The 
 woman who believes herself predestined to be 
 a wife and a mother will prefer the third : the 
 born adventuress will choose the second : the 
 least domestic will select the first. On the other 
 hand, it might be the other way round. Who 
 can tell ? Woman is still the Dark Continent 
 of man. If one were to live to the age of 
 Methuselah, and act on the principle of nulla 
 dies sine linea, with every line devoted to the 
 chronicle of woman's nature, the volume would 
 be behindhand even on the day of publication. 
 A copiously margined and footnoted edition 
 would be called for immediately. Even if by 
 that time only one woman were left, there 
 would be prompt need of an appendix. There 
 would also, as a matter of fact, always be a
 
 ECCE PUELLA 25 
 
 St. Bernard to grumble : " Woman is the organ 
 of the Devil "—a Michelet to say with a smile 
 that she is the Sunday of man — a cynic to hint 
 that love of her might be the dawn of marriage, 
 but that marriage with her would be sunset of 
 love — a poet to exclaim that she was the last 
 priestess of the unknown. 
 
 " Feed me with metaphors," says a poet in a 
 recent romance ; " and above all with metaphors 
 of Woman. I know none that do not make me 
 love women more and more." 
 
 Did he know his Balzac ? Somewhere in that 
 vast repository of thoughts on men and women 
 I recollect this : " La Mort est femme, — mariee 
 au genre humain, et fidele. Ou est l'homme 
 qu'elle a trompe ?" 
 
 Some day a woman will compile a little 
 volume of women's thoughts about men. These 
 will be interesting. Men will read some of them 
 with the same amazed pain wherewith recently 
 ennobled brewers and the like peruse articles 
 on the abolition of hereditary aristocracy. 
 
 Here, for example, is one — 
 
 " The greatest merit of some men is their 
 wife." 
 
 It was Poincelot, a man, who said this: but 
 let a woman speak —
 
 26 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 " Physical beauty in man has become as rare 
 as his moral beauty has always been." 
 
 Once more — 
 
 " It is not the weathercock that changes : it 
 is the wind." 
 
 Since the days of Troy — or of Lilith — men 
 have delighted in calling women weathercocks. 
 
 After all, we have been told many times that 
 one of the principal occupations of men is to 
 divine women : but it was a wise philosopher 
 who added that women prefer us to say a little 
 evil of them rather than say nothing of them 
 at all. 
 
 V 
 
 We are all agreed now, let us say, that there 
 is no such thing as an universally accepted 
 standard of beauty. There is not even an 
 accepted standard of beauty among those who 
 admire the same type. To the most favoured 
 dreamer Ideala will still come in at least three- 
 fold guise, as those three lovely sisters of the 
 Rushout family whom, not Cosway, but, like 
 him, one of the finest of miniaturists has pre- 
 served for our delight. There are a million 
 villages as fair as the one in which we were
 
 ECCE PUELLA 2 1 ] 
 
 born, but for us there is only one village. 
 When we quote " Sweet Auburn, loveliest 
 village of the plain," we have one particular 
 locality in our mental vision, as no doubt the 
 poet of the Song of Solomon had when he sang, 
 " Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the 
 fields ; let us lodge in the villages." Doubtless, 
 too, he had one particular beloved in view, 
 veiled behind his bardic rhapsody. Each of 
 us has a particular Eve behind the phantom 
 of an ideal type. 
 
 Of course there are both "villages" and 
 "Eves" that exist only in the mind. There 
 are dreamers who prefer either when most un- 
 substantial. " Ma contree de dilection," says 
 the Flemish novelist Eekhoud, " n'existe pour 
 aucun touriste, et jamais guide ou medecin ne 
 la recommandera." Some, too, having found 
 an Eve, will crave for her isolation from the 
 rough usage of the common day, lest she fall 
 from her high estate. They are not altogether 
 foolish who can do so, and can say with a 
 young living poet : — 
 
 " I fear lest time or toil should mar — 
 I fear lest passion should debase 
 The delicacy of thy grace. 
 Depart ; and I will throne thee far,
 
 28 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 Will hide thee in a halcyon place 
 That hath an angel populace ; 
 And ever in dreams will find thy face, 
 Where all things pure and perfect are, 
 Smiling upon me like a star." 
 
 This is a temper beyond most of us, who are 
 all hedonists by instinct, and in the bodily not 
 the spiritual sense. Flaubert the man was not 
 representative of us, his weaker fellows. " Je 
 n'ai jamais pu emboiter Venus avec Apollon," 
 as he wrote to George Sand, when she advised 
 him to try domestic happiness or at least a 
 little flirtation. 
 
 Besides, there are men to whom the element 
 of strangeness, of something bizarre perhaps, 
 even of something barbaric, is of primary appeal. 
 The very quintessence, the crown, the aloe- 
 bloom of this kind of art, is it not Leonardo's 
 Monna Lisa del' Gioconda ? Perhaps, even 
 more convincingly, in that drawing of his in 
 the Accademia delle belle Arti, in Venice, of 
 a beautiful girl, with sidelong rippling hair, 
 delicately crowned with vine leaves, with that 
 enigmatical smile on her face and still more 
 enigmatical smile in her eyes — a type finer even 
 than this Milanese beauty? It is a type that 
 does not appeal to many men, but, where its 
 appeal is felt at all, it is irresistible. There is
 
 ECCE PUELLA 29 
 
 all the seduction of nameless peril in these 
 mysterious faces which apparently tell nothing 
 and yet are so full of subtle meaning and re- 
 pressed intensity. How else, again, are we to 
 account for the fascination of such an one as 
 Lady Ellenborough, for instance, "the impe- 
 rious Jane," immortalised by Sir Thomas Law- 
 rence ? 
 
 Surely it must be admitted that even his art 
 does not bestow beauty upon "that witch." 
 Doubtless she had a smile that could unlock 
 prison doors, eyes that could melt a Marat or 
 Danton, a mien and manner, an expression and 
 charm, that made her irresistible to most men. 
 But, on canvas, one can see no more than that she 
 looks like a woman who had immense vitality. 
 The lady's story is certainly a remarkable one. 
 Miss Jane Elizabeth Digby must have been a 
 vivacious damsel, even while still a school-girl, 
 and, in the manner of her time, learning to 
 spell execrably. She was one of the fortunate 
 women born with the invisible sceptre. If she 
 had been an actress, she would have been the 
 empress of the stage ; if she had been a demi- 
 mondaine, she would have been the Aspasia of 
 her day : if she had been a queen, she would 
 have been a Catherine of Russia. Again, she
 
 30 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 was one of those impetuous people who have 
 no time to be virtuous. We know next to 
 nothing of her girlhood, yet we may be sure 
 that she set her nursemaid a bad example in 
 flirtation, and shocked her governess, if she 
 had one, by many abortive intrigues. No 
 doubt her friends thought that she would 
 settle down and be good when she became 
 the wife of the Earl of Ellenborough. They 
 argued that what a high-spirited Miss Digby 
 would do, a proud-spirited Countess of Ellen- 
 borough would disdain. But Miss Jane Eliza- 
 beth had, she considered, come into the world 
 to enjoy herself in her own way. Not long 
 after her marriage she permitted the too marked 
 attention of Prince Schwartzenberg, and this 
 brought about a duel between that gentleman 
 and Lord Ellenborough. Neither duellist was 
 killed : and the only result was that not long 
 afterwards the lady made up her mind to go 
 off with Prince Schwartzenberg. After a time 
 Lord Ellenborough died, and then his widow 
 married the Prime Minister of Bavaria. That 
 a genuine passion for this strange woman ani- 
 mated the Bavarian noble is clear, not only 
 from his having offered marriage to a lady of 
 such doubtful reputation, but from the tragic
 
 ECCE PUELLA 3 I 
 
 circumstance that, when she tired of him in 
 turn, and set forth once more on her dauntless 
 quest of man, he committed suicide. She had 
 several episodes between this date and that 
 when she found herself in Syria, and espoused 
 to an Arab Sheik of Damascus. It would be 
 incredible that she died in his arms in the 
 desert, were it not for the additional fact that 
 she was at that moment contemplating an 
 elopement with her handsome dragoman. Miss 
 Digby was, certainly, not one of those " beau- 
 ties" towards whom — as Gautier advises — one 
 should go straight as a bullet. Instead of our 
 seizing "her by the tip of the wing, politely 
 but firmly like a gendarme," she would be 
 much more likely to seize us. She was un- 
 reasonable, we will admit, but then, with Mme. 
 de Girardin, she might exclaim " Be reason- 
 able ! which means : No longer hope to be 
 happy." Obviously she was of those essen- 
 tially feline women of whom Edgar de Meilhan 
 speaks when he says that "tigers, whatever 
 you may say, are bad companions." " With 
 regard to tigers," he adds, "we tolerate only 
 cats, and then they must have velvet paws." 
 Neither Lord Ellenborough, nor the Bavarian 
 Prime Minister, nor the Arab Sheik, nor any
 
 32 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 other of her special friends, would deny that 
 a little more velvet on the paws of the sprightly 
 Jane Elizabeth would have been an advan- 
 tage. 
 
 There are always women of this kind, who 
 exercise an imperious and inexplicable sway 
 over the male imagination, or, to be more 
 exact, over the imagination of certain males. 
 It is no use to reason with the bondager. 
 With the King in Love's Labours Lost he can 
 but reply 
 
 "Yet still she is the moon, and I the man. 
 The music plays . . ." 
 
 We are fortunate, possibly, who never hear 
 this music, a bewildering strain from the heart 
 of the Venusberg. Rather that "silver chiming," 
 which is "the music of the bells of wedded love." 
 Poets are terrible romanticists in the matter of 
 the affections. They are the most faithful of 
 lovers to some impossible She : but they are 
 apt to have wandering eyes in the ordinary 
 way of life. Too many behave, even on the 
 threshold of the Ideal, in the reprehensible 
 manner of Samuel Pepys when that famous 
 chronicler and incurable old pagan found him- 
 self in church one fine day. " Being wearied,"
 
 ECCE PUELLA 33 
 
 he writes, " turned into St. Dunstan's Church, 
 where I heard an able sermon of the minister 
 of the place ; and stood by a pretty modest 
 maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand ; 
 but she would not, but got further and further 
 from me ; and, at last, I could perceive her to 
 take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I 
 should touch her again — which, seeing, I did 
 forbear, and was glad I did spy her design. 
 And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty 
 maid in a pew close to me, and she on me ; 
 and I did go about to take her by the hand, 
 which she suffered a little and then withdrew. 
 So the sermon ended." It is to be feared that 
 Pepys had not realised that counsel of perfection, 
 which may be given in the guise of a phrase 
 remembered from Evan Harrington, — " Both 
 Ale and Eve seem to speak imperiously to 
 the love of man. See that they be good, see 
 that they come in season." 
 
 VI 
 
 " But how to know beauty in woman when 
 one sees it, that is the question," said to me a 
 disappointed bachelor friend the other day. 
 
 D
 
 34 E CCE PUELLA 
 
 " If there is no absolute beauty, and if the 
 type is so much distributed in various guises, 
 how is a man who cares only for dark women 
 to see the insignia of beauty in those who have 
 red hair or yellow, and blue eyes, and in the 
 matter of complexion are like curds and cream 
 stained with roses ? " 
 
 Alas for these uncertain ones, there is nothing 
 for it but a steady course of gratifying and ed- 
 ucating the Appreciative Faculties ! To my 
 querist I replied in the words of Gautier as 
 Edgar de Meilhan : " Go straight as a bullet 
 towards your beauty ; seize her by the tip of 
 her wing, politely but firmly, like a gendarme." 
 
 But is there for you, for me, a fundamental 
 charm ? That charm, surely, must be dis- 
 tinction. With the Egoist, " my thoughts come 
 to this conclusion, that, especially in women, 
 distinction is the thing to be aimed at." This, 
 alone, is what survives, perhaps all that ever 
 lived, in the portraits of the "beauties" of a 
 bygone day. Then, too, it must be kept in 
 mind that the painter, even more than the 
 poet, is a born sycophant. He loves the sweet 
 insincerities of the plausibly impossible. Most 
 of us are apt to be deceived by the inuendoes of 
 anecdote, the flatteries of rumour, the glamour
 
 ECCE PUELLA 35 
 
 of the Past, the mirage of history. Take, for 
 example, Botticelli's well-known " La Bella 
 Simonetta," the lady whom Giuliano de Medici 
 made his mistress because of her winsome 
 beauty. " La Bella Simonetta : " there is magic 
 in the name : it is a sweet sound echoing down 
 the corridors of memory. Alessandro Filipepi 
 painted her before the greater name of Sandro 
 Botticelli became a mockery among the ungodly 
 who railed at Savonarola and his teachings. 
 Angelo Politian and Pulci wedded her loveli- 
 ness to lovely words, and . . . whose pulse, 
 now, would quicken because of la bella Simon- 
 etta ? Even through the ingenuity of Sandro's 
 art, a quite ordinary damsel confronts us. 
 
 Again, take the acknowledged Fair Women 
 of our own country and of a time nearer our 
 own : two types so popular as Lely's Countess 
 of Grammont and Van Dyck's Countess of 
 Sutherland. 
 
 While it is easy to understand how Elizabeth 
 Hamilton became " la belle Hamilton" at the 
 Court of Charles II., and had more offers of 
 marriage than the number of years she had 
 lived, till, in the third year of the Restoration, 
 she gave her hand to the celebrated wit and 
 courtier, the Comte Philiberte de Grammont, 
 
 d — 2
 
 36 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 most of us doubtless would find it difficult to 
 discover that " fundamental charm " we hoped 
 to see. I could believe all that her brother 
 Anthony could tell of her beauty and winsome- 
 ness, and have no doubt that Count Philibert 
 was a very lucky man. But, for myself, I realise 
 that even had I been a member of that wicked, 
 laughing, delightful, reprehensible Cavalier 
 Court, and a favourite of fortune in the matter 
 of advantages, I doubt if I would have been 
 one of the five-and-twenty suitors of " la belle 
 Hamilton." Certainly, as things are, one might 
 be Japhet in search of a wife and still not be 
 allured, even in random fancy, by this particu- 
 lar Fair Woman.* Alas, there is yet another 
 charm which allures men when Beauty is only 
 an impossible star ; in the words of the anony- 
 mous poet of " Tibbie Fowler o' the Glen," 
 
 " Gin a lass be e'er sae black, 
 An' she hae the pennysiller, 
 Set her up on Tinto tap, 
 
 The win'll blaw a man 'till her." 
 
 It was not the fair Elizabeth's " pennysiller," 
 however, that was the attraction, though she did 
 have what the Scots slyly call " advantages." 
 
 * Marryat's Japhet sought a father, but this is not a mis» 
 application to boggle at !
 
 ECCE PUELLA T>7 
 
 Nevertheless, it is clear she must have in her 
 beauty something that appeals to many minds 
 and in different epochs. The fastidious nobles 
 and wits of the Restoration admired her ; Sir 
 Peter Lely expended his highest powers in 
 painting her ; his portrait of her has long been 
 the gem of the famous series known as the 
 " Windsor Beauties," and at Hampton Court 
 she is ever one of the most popular of the 
 ladies of the Stuart regime. 
 
 Probably the Countess of Sutherland, of whom 
 Van Dyck, it is thought, so much enjoyed the 
 painting, must have been more winsome in 
 looks, as she was certainly superior in graces 
 of mind and spirit. This is the famous Lady 
 Dorothy Sidney, daughter of the second Earl 
 of Leicester and wife of that Lord Sunderland, 
 the first of his title, who fell fighting under the 
 Royalist flag at the Battle of Newbury ; not to 
 be remembered for this now, however, but as 
 the " Sacharissa " of Edmund Waller's love- 
 poems. True, Waller, who was for generations 
 one of the most popular, and for a few decades 
 the most popular of all English poets, is now 
 almost as little read as the least notable of his 
 contemporaries. He aspired to be England's 
 Petrarch, and like Lovelace with one flawless
 
 38 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 lyric, or like Blanco White, or the French poet, 
 Felix Arvers, with a single sonnet, is now among 
 the immortals by virtue only of one little song. 
 Possibly Laura had as good reason for dis- 
 counting the passion of her Petrarco as Dorothy 
 Sidney had for qualification of the prolonged 
 homage of Waller. Both " My deathless Laura " 
 and "My divine Sacharissa " married another 
 person than the lover who gave immortality in 
 verse ; married, and had children, and occa- 
 sionally perhaps glanced at the Sonnets to 
 Laura, or the Poems addressed to Sacharissa. 
 Not only, indeed, did Lady Dorothy choose 
 Lord Sunderland in preference to Waller, but 
 as a widow she even preferred the practical 
 poetry of a Mr. Robert Smythe's wooing to 
 that which in her youth she had had so much 
 experience of in verse. Fair and comely she 
 seems in Van Dyck's portrait of her, though 
 not the Sacharissa of whom one had dreamed. 
 Was it this attractive English lady who was the 
 inspirer of "Go, lovely Rose?" The thought 
 suggests the strange revelation it would be, 
 if we were to be entertained with a series of 
 authentic likenesses of all the beautiful women 
 we have loved or dreamed of across the ages. 
 " A Dream of Fair Women ; " what would Helen
 
 ECCE PUELLA 39 
 
 say to it, or Cleopatra, or Guenevere, or, for that 
 matter, Eve herself? What a desert of dis- 
 illusion would exist between the catalogue-entry, 
 " Helen, daughter of Leda queen to King Tyn- 
 darus, who became the wife of Menelaus, and 
 subsequently went abroad with Paris : com- 
 monly known as Helen of Troy," and the 
 quoted motto-lines from Marlowe : — 
 
 " Is this the face that launched a thousand ships 
 And burned the topless towers of Ilium?" 
 
 Again, fancy the astonishment and chagrin of 
 Mr. Swinburne, if he passed one by one the 
 actual counterparts of the ladies of the " Masque 
 of Queen Bersabe," from Herodias to that Ala- 
 ciel whose eyes " were as a grey-green sea," and 
 found that he could not recognise one of those 
 vignettes in red or white flame which he wrought 
 so wondrously in the days of his youth ! Semir- 
 amis, in truth, may have been but a handsome 
 woman with a temper, the Queen of Sheba 
 nothing more than distinctly pretty, and Sappho 
 passionate but plain. 
 
 But there is a difference between the praisers 
 of Royal beauty and those who hymn ladies 
 whom they can also approach when the lyre is 
 laid aside. We believe in Laura and Sacharissa
 
 40 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 and Castara, and many other fair dames beloved 
 of the sons of Apollo. If for nothing else than 
 because she inspired the loveliest of all Waller's 
 songs, we would look with homage at this Fair 
 Woman whom the genius of Vandyck has given 
 us a glimpse of : — 
 
 " Go, lovely Rose, 
 Tell her that wastes her time and me, 
 That now she knows 
 When I resemble her to thee 
 How sweet and fair she seems to be. 
 
 "Tell her that's young, 
 And shuns to have her graces spied, 
 That hadst thou sprung 
 In deserts where no men abide, 
 Thou must have uncommended died. 
 
 "Small is the worth 
 Of beauty from the light retired ; 
 Bid her come forth, 
 Suffer herself to be desired, 
 And not blush so to be admired. 
 
 " Then die, that she 
 The common fate of all things rare 
 May read in thee, 
 
 How small a part of time they share 
 Who are so wondrous sweet and fair." 
 
 After all, perhaps the secret of our delight in 
 these Ladies of " the glowing picture and the 
 living word" is this: that, even of the fairest,
 
 ECCE PUELLA 4 I 
 
 the true lover can say, with the poet of " The 
 
 Moonstar " — 
 
 "Lady, I thank thee for thy loveliness, 
 Because my lady is more lovely still." 
 
 VII 
 
 To return to the Fair Women of Painting. Here, 
 alas, there remain always one or two unfor- 
 givable disillusions. To begin with, there is the 
 inevitable Eve ; generally either a matronly per- 
 son discomfortably garbless, or a self-conscious 
 studio model. There is Helen of Troy, gloriously 
 immortal in the hexameters of Homer and the 
 heroics of Marlowe, but made ridiculous by in- 
 numerable painters. And, to come home, there 
 is our own Helen : Mary of Scotland. Is there 
 indeed a portrait of the Queen of Scots in exist- 
 ence which any Mariolater could have pleasure 
 in looking at ? There are certain women we 
 never wish to see except in mental vision. Some 
 readers may recollect the Sapphic fragment 
 preserved by Hephaestion, which tells us 
 simply that " Mnasidica is more shapely than 
 the tender Gyrinno." Fortunate Mnasidica, 
 who has haunted the minds of men ever since,
 
 42 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 through never once having been enslaved by 
 sculptor or painter of any period ! Beautiful 
 Shapeliness, that none can gainsay ! Painters 
 who give us Helens and Cleopatras and Queen 
 Maries seem to be quite unaware of the heavy 
 handicap they put upon their productions. And 
 so it goes without saying, that all portraits of 
 Mary of Scotland are disappointing, from that 
 of the earliest anonymous limner to that of Mr. 
 Lavery. There is not one of us blase enough to 
 with stand the cruel disillusion of what, by way 
 of adding insult to injury, is called " authentic 
 likeness." Poor Mary ! She has paid bitterly 
 in innumerable portraits for the wonderful 
 rumour of her beauty in her own day. No man 
 who respects himself should commit Use majeste 
 by ungracious comment before any canvas of 
 this pictorially much misrepresented Queen. It 
 does indeed make one glad that a few others 
 world-famous for their beauty were spared the 
 ignominy of pictorial immortality. 
 
 If all Fair Women of Picture-world were 
 brought together, it would be made quite clear 
 that the one thing which in a thousand instances 
 escapes the painter is expression. Expression 
 is the morning glory of beauty. A few men in 
 all ages have understood this, Leonardo and
 
 ECCE PUELLA 43 
 
 the great Italians pre-eminently. It is to the 
 credit of many of the most eccentric "impres- 
 sionists " that they have wearied of conventional 
 similitude, and striven to give something of the 
 real self of the person whose likeness is being 
 transferred to canvas. These, with Bastien 
 Lepage, have realised that " we must change 
 our ways if any of our work is to live." " We 
 must try," adds that notable artist of whom 
 Mrs. Julia Cartwright has recently given us so 
 excellent a biography, "we must try to see and 
 reproduce that inmost radiance which lies at 
 the heart of things, and is the only true beauty, 
 because it is the life." 
 
 That inmost radiance ! To discern it, to 
 apprehend it, to reveal it to others, that is 
 indeed the quintessential thing in all art. 
 
 But the spectator must not only make allow- 
 ances for the painter of a portrait ; he must 
 himself exercise a certain effort. In a word, 
 he must bring the glow of imagination into 
 play, he must let his mental atmosphere be 
 nimble and keenly receptive. He must remem- 
 ber that while portraiture may have verisimili- 
 tude of a kind, it can very rarely simulate that 
 loveliest thing in a woman's beauty — expres- 
 sion. He must discern in the canvas a light
 
 44 ECCE PUELLA 
 
 that is not there. He must see the colour 
 come and go upon the face, must see the eyes 
 darken or gleam, the lips move, the smile just 
 about to come forth : and, if possible, the inner 
 radiance that, in many vivid and fine natures, 
 seems to dwell upon the forehead, though too 
 fugitive ever to be caught, save as it were for a 
 moment unawares.
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO
 
 To E. A. S.
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM THE LOST JOURNALS 
 OF PIERO DI COSIMO* 
 
 Before I went to Rome with my master 
 Cosimo many strange things happened. No 
 perilous or untoward incidents befell me, it 
 is true, but I was ever so curious in the by- 
 ways of life that each day brought me some- 
 thing whereat to marvel greatly. It was ever 
 so with me. Life itself is the supreme mystery : 
 whoso fathoms that will solve the whole secret 
 that has puzzled the wisest men of all time. 
 Yet the more I think (and what a strain this 
 endless thinking is — thinking, thinking, think- 
 ing !) the more I realise that there can be no 
 discovery for any man save the revelation that 
 
 * Doubtless the Journal of Piero di Cosimo, or certain 
 portions of it, must have been known to Vasari. His 
 description, certainly, of the Car of Death, closely tallies 
 with Fiero's own.
 
 48 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 the world exists for him only. What I mean 
 is clear, though peradventure to some it might 
 seem either a sport in words, an untimely folly, 
 or to others a dark saying, such as the occult 
 wisdom of those soothsayers and astrologers 
 who, I am well assured, play upon the igno- 
 rance of the uneducated. It is this : that 
 whatsoever this world has, behind its veil, as 
 it were ; such hidden beauty or strangeness or 
 terror is only to be seen of those eyes which 
 bring their own power of seeing. Children and 
 many ignorant country-people believe, that the 
 fogs and rains which the autumnal equinox 
 bringeth do indeed obliterate the stars from 
 the obscured heavens : not knowing that their 
 shining is a thing apart, and as far removed 
 from the vanities of this earth as the virtues 
 of the most Blessed Virgin Mother are from 
 the petty goodnesses and shortcomings of 
 womankind in this world — and most certainly 
 from those of the ladies of Florence, who seem 
 to me to have much resemblance to those 
 flighty insects which hover in still noons and 
 at sundown by Arno-side, having all the cha- 
 racteristics of these, but lacking in the most 
 welcome, that they perish speedily, even if they 
 survive their long day from starsetting to moon-
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 49 
 
 rise. But wiser persons, to whom the processes 
 of nature are, in their superficial aspects, not in 
 any wise strange, know well the foolishness 
 of such surmises about the disappearance of 
 heavenly bodies because of the rising of earthly 
 mists and vapours. And so is it with the more 
 occult world of thought. One must have the 
 eye of faith as well as the eye of the body. 
 One must know that there is light beyond dark- 
 ness, life beyond death, spirit beyond clay, just 
 as the educated know that the same stars which 
 we saw yesternight still whirl their silver spheres 
 through the upper spaces, whether mists and 
 darkness intervene or the equally obscuring 
 splendour of the sun. But over and above 
 this there is a further vision which a few have. 
 This sight brings to the mind and thence to the 
 soul what is beyond the extremest visual ken. 
 Men so gifted are the world's philosophers. 
 They see not merely the fixity of the stars and 
 the mutability of the mists and darkness, but 
 the causes of these obscurities : and they appre- 
 hend also the laws whereby the stars exist and 
 scatter their remote influences upon the tides 
 of life, whether these be of the waters of ocean 
 or of the sap in trees and plants, or of the hot 
 or gelid blood in the living things of the world, 
 
 E
 
 50 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 from the lizard and the callous newt to man 
 himself. And yet again there are some who 
 have a still deeper sight. These are they who 
 are the passionate students of life. But of 
 what avail is it that one telleth unto another 
 his interpretation, if the other understand not 
 also something of the occult meanings, the lost 
 language, of which it is the halting translation ? 
 There is no salve to our undying curiosity save 
 that which is found of ourselves. Therefore is 
 it why I, for one, have long sought diligently of 
 her, Madonna Natura — Natura Benigna or Na- 
 tura Maligna? — my one mistress; and how I 
 shall ever so continue, even as I have done from 
 my youth onward. 
 
 My youth ! Ah ! I was young then when I 
 started with good Master Cosimo for the court 
 of Pope Sixtus in that near and yet far-off Rome. 
 I have already, earlier in these journals, written 
 of my lonely but not unhappy boyhood, but 
 now I cannot help recalling those bygone days. 
 Here is a letter which Cosimo Rosselli, my good 
 master, my very father, wrote to me, now years 
 agone. It is already stained with some chemic 
 dissolution : as the world is with the stain of 
 mortality : as / am, now that I am sere as one of 
 those October chestnut-leaves I brought home
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 5 1 
 
 with me the other day from that deep glade of 
 Vallombrosa I love so well. 
 
 1 My ever-beloved Piero,' so runs the dear 
 familiar hand, ' the tears are in my eyes to-day, 
 and for two causes. This afternoon, after I 
 had finished painting — and, alas ! my craft is 
 not what it was — I went forth to sun myself in 
 the gardens of the Medici, having at all times 
 the entry thereto. There, just as I was about 
 to leave, owing to a twilight wind, somewhat 
 premature and cold, coming out of the green- 
 ness of the cypress boughs, I heard a sound as 
 of some one sobbing. It had such bitter distress 
 in it that my heart ached. After a brief time of 
 uncertainty I beheld, quite close, and leaning 
 against a very ancient yew, an old man, so 
 wearily a wreck of life that he seemed rather a 
 human-like excrescence of the tree than a fellow 
 creature. But the crackling of a cone or twig 
 beneath my feet aroused him, and he passed at 
 once from the semblance of dismal death to the 
 reality of a yet more dismal life. He was about 
 to make haste away, as speedily as his age and 
 infirmities would permit, and not without an 
 angry and half-defiant irritation at my unwitting 
 intrusion, such as, I bethought me, betokened 
 some rankling memory of better days, when he 
 
 e — 2
 
 52 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 stumbled over one of the two sticks whereby he 
 aided his feeble gait. I ran forward to assist 
 him, and whom think you, Piero, I recognised ? 
 None other than that true and great painter 
 whom you have so often admired, Sandro Botti- 
 celli ! Ah, how it made my tears well to my 
 eyes. But though he knew me, he would have 
 none of me. I besought him by old friendship, 
 by the memory of our comradeship at Rome, 
 when he and I and Domenico Ghirlandajo, and 
 Luca of Cortona, and Piero Perugino, all wrought 
 together for the Papal award. He laughed once, 
 but bitterly; and taunted me, by asking if I had 
 yet turned my pictures into a jeweller's stock ; 
 alluding therein to the method whereby I gained 
 the Pope's prime favour, by the excessive gild- 
 ing of my work, which made his Holiness believe 
 it to be superior to the productions of better 
 men — (a matter, Piero, I once took pride in, 
 but am now ashamed of) : but, on my silence, 
 he turned away as though penitent before an 
 old friend. " Mio caro amico, mio maestro carissimo" 
 I began, when he brusquely interrupted me, 
 and cried " Ecco ! Cosimo Rosselli, I am Ales- 
 sandro Filipepi, the son of Mariano Filipepi, 
 of Florence, and have nought to do with the 
 vain dabbler in painted follies whom men call
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 53 
 
 Botticelli. You knew me of old, and may call 
 me Sandro if you will, but not that other name. 
 Shall my tears and my bitter repentance never 
 wash out those days of sinful vanity ! " To the 
 which heart-wrung cry I replied : " I knew you 
 had thrown away brush and pencil, Sandro mio, 
 and that you had become a Piagnone,* but I 
 never believed, I cannot now believe, that you, 
 you, the master Botticelli — nay, you must let me 
 say it — can forget your art. How well I re- 
 member your saying to Ghirlandajo, that work 
 was good but beauty was better, as the soul is 
 lovelier than even the most fair body. You 
 cannot have forgotten that, nor how you once 
 told Luca Signorelli that pure colour was like 
 God, for the very being of God is pure music, 
 and pure colour is but the visible and beautiful 
 tranced body of music. Whereupon he sighed, 
 looked at me long and earnestly ; then, mutter- 
 ing only, " I am well, I am well, I want for 
 nought," made me sign of farewell, and went 
 on his way. But for hours afterward, ay and 
 oft since, methought I heard that bitter, miser- 
 able sob where the yew and cypress shadows 
 were. 
 
 h That is, of the bigoted sect of Fra Girolamo Savonarola.
 
 54 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 ' And the other cause of my weeping to-day, 
 though rather a soft summer rain, such as falls 
 from my white lilac (where the young thrush 
 revolves his song oftentimes leisurely, but again 
 with such a marvellous swift joy and sweetness 
 as to make me wonder at God's grace to these 
 creatures of a springtide), rather such a rain I 
 say than the sterner tears which I shed earlier 
 over my unhappy Botticelli. 
 
 ' For I came by chance, dear son, upon an 
 early and a strange letter of thine, when thou 
 wert not yet in thy fifteenth year. How keenly 
 it recalled those bygone days ! I seemed once 
 again to see thee, ever studious, and apart from 
 thy fellows, and oftentimes rapt in strange 
 imaginings. Fond, indeed, thou wert then as 
 now of remote places, and of all things fantastic, 
 and of solitude ; a dreamy youth, moreover, 
 wont to reply vaguely to questions of common 
 import. And in this letter of thine, writ as I 
 say when thou were not yet in thy fifteenth 
 year, thou speakest strangely for a youth. 
 "The bale of life is so bitter that one hath 
 perforce to occupy one's-self with such diver- 
 sion as is offered by the strange, the fantastic, 
 the terrible." What manner of boy is it who 
 writeth thus ? Again : " I saw to-day a cloud
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 55 
 
 of those smoke-like balls of seed blown from a 
 field of dandelions : how beautiful they were, 
 how exquisite their dalliance with the light 
 wind, how perfect each delicate part — nothing 
 out of heaven more wondrous light and aerial ! 
 All were blown upon a rotting dunghill, amid 
 whose indiscriminate filth and stench were 
 perishing butterflies, and some stained apple- 
 blossoms, and voracious beetles and centipedes 
 and other horrible insects, with worms, unwieldy 
 and overgorged, rejoicing in corruption. And 
 when I went home and fell into a dream, I was 
 sore perplexed whether I had seen all this, or 
 had been but deliberating upon dear ambitions, 
 and fair hopes, and human life, and the end 
 thereof, and the immortality of the worm." 
 Ah, Piero, Piero, as thou wert then, so art 
 thou now ; men say strange things of thy way- 
 ward life, though they praise thy genius. And 
 the ending of thy letter, how sad it is ! " But 
 thee, Cosimo Rosselli, my master, whom I love, 
 can deep affection save thee from the ills of life? 
 If so, thou art saved indeed ! " 
 
 1 And now, dear Piero, though I have seen 
 nought of thee for long, we seem to be closelier 
 drawn one to the other. Wilt thou not come 
 and visit one who, whatsoever men idly say
 
 56 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 against thee, will ever love thy person as 
 he reveres thy genius. Thou knowest that I 
 am thine in comradeship and love, Cos i mo 
 Rosselli.' 
 
 # # # * # 
 
 They say that I live more as a wild beast 
 than as a man : because I bar my doors against 
 the idle and the over curious; eat, only when 
 I am an-hungered ; will not have my garden 
 digged, nor the fruit-trees pruned ; will not 
 haunt the streets, or the taverns, or the guest- 
 rooms, nor talk much and eagerly of matters 
 that concern me not at all. So be it. Perhaps 
 the wild beast is none the less beloved of nature 
 than the foolish human babbler. Why should 
 I eat save when I would ? Why not be solitary, 
 when solitude is my festival ? Why have my 
 garden digged or my fruit-trees pruned, when 
 to me the pleasure is greater to see the branches 
 trail upon the ground, to behold the vines grow 
 in their own way (as the human fool will not 
 do, but persuadeth himself to ancestral follies, 
 and conventions of outworn usage). Nature 
 hath heed of her offspring. She hath birds to 
 feed off these grape clusters, whether they be 
 high and wind-swayed, or lie all ruined in the 
 mould ; butterflies, too, and moths, that haunt
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 57 
 
 the sugared ooze upon over-ripe fruit ; and flame- 
 like wasps darting hither and thither, with keen 
 knives cutting the purple skins ; and the larvae 
 of many insects, and caterpillars and grey slugs 
 and worms — these hath she all to feed, from my 
 vines, as well as me. I am but one of these : 
 but not so happy, because I think : not so wise, 
 because I hope. 
 
 # # # # # 
 
 Last night, very late (how white the shining 
 of the moon upon the flood of Arno, and how 
 deathlike the city in its silence, though joys and 
 woes, and passionate hopes and more passionate 
 despairs quivered, like exposed nerves, beneath 
 the cold, calm exterior), on my homeward way 
 from Vallombrosa, I stopped at the house of 
 Antonio del Monte, the naturalist. Walking 
 along the chestnut glades, hours before, and 
 wondering if ever painter would be born who 
 would be able to paint living nature, and not 
 but our dull dream of her (yet, in my vanity, 
 thinking of that landscape which I painted for 
 Pope Sixtus, when I went to Rome with Cosimo 
 Rosselli, the one which gained me so much praise 
 and so many commissions) : wondering also, in 
 my strange uplifted ecstasy, if in any other 
 world — if such there be, as I shrewdly suspect,
 
 58 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 among all those stars and planets overhead, 
 despite what the Prior said to me about the 
 evil and perilous thoughts of the excommuni- 
 cated and already damned — wondering then if 
 there be any more beautiful than this, with 
 with such infinities of mercy and delight for us, 
 and indeed for all living things, I beheld some- 
 what that struck me as with a chill of fever. 
 Overhead I saw a hawk, motionless as though 
 painted against a dome of blue. It fell suddenly, 
 many a score of paces — how many I could not 
 say : then hung hovering ; and all in a moment 
 crashed upon a hen-partridge cowering over her 
 chicks, and spilt the blood from the cleft head 
 upon the wheat-stacks close by. And further, 
 scarce fifty yards away from where I stood, a 
 fierce stoat crept nigher and nigher to a rabbit, 
 which crouched trembling, giving forth a strange 
 choking sob at times, and at the last sprang upon 
 it and drove its teeth into the rabbit's skull. And 
 further, I saw a sparrow-hawk on a fir-bough, 
 tearing a young thrush to pieces, and scattering 
 the bloodied feathers to right and left. And 
 further, I saw a dead and rotten branch fall and 
 crush a white bloom of lilies on the sward under- 
 neath. And further, I saw at my feet a small 
 but agile insect, striped like a wasp, that ran
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 59 
 
 backward and sideward as easily as forward, 
 and it waylaid a tender yellow moth and nipped 
 its head off and devoured it. Then a passion 
 came into my heart, and I went away with my 
 soul sick within me. I laughed at the beauty 
 of the world, and cursed the mercy thereof. 
 And as I passed the vlilage at the foot of the 
 hill I heard a man, blaspheming, strike his wife 
 with savage cruelty ; and the cry somewhere of 
 a child wailing in pain. And when I told all to 
 Antonio del Monte, he laughed. He said Na- 
 ture was a beast of prey. And I — I— have 
 loved Nature, have worshipped her ! The end 
 of idolaters is death within death. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I remember well — it was after my first car- 
 nival in Rome — that an idea of a new and 
 striking, albeit fantastic, masquerade, came into 
 my mind. Yet it was not there but in Florence 
 that I fulfilled it ; and many years later. I was 
 in great favour then with the gay Florentine 
 youth, ever alert to novelties as to fierce deeds : 
 they prized me for my invention in designing 
 pleasurable surprises. Of a truth, the mas- 
 querades became new things altogether, after 
 my dispositions were approved and carried into 
 effect. Thenceforth they became triumphal pro-
 
 60 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 cessions, with men and horses gorgeously and 
 strangely apparelled, and with wild or joyous 
 music. It was a fine sight indeed, when, along 
 the flower-strewn streets, young men (nude, or 
 with leopard or tiger skins thrown about them, 
 and garlanded with roses and lilies) rode upon 
 foam-white stallions, these snorting through 
 blood-red nostrils or neighing with hoarse 
 clangours that rang against the black marble 
 and basalt of the Florentine palaces ! The sun 
 shone upon the ivory skins of the men and the 
 blanched milk-white steeds, and upon the trod- 
 den flowers, all red and white and yellow (that 
 gave up an indescribable languorous and most 
 sweet smell, as though the very soul of spring 
 were dying there and passing away in forlorn 
 fragrances), and upon the gay crowd, so brightly 
 and variously clad, and upon the beautiful fair 
 women — many with wind-lifted hair and loosened 
 bodices, and breasts that gleamed like globed 
 water-lilies : the froth and foam, these, of the 
 carnival-tide — laughing, and throwing those 
 deep blood-red roses which are called Hearts 
 o' Love, and wearing cream-hued and scarlet 
 scarfs, twined round and trailing from the 
 whitest of arms. And not less striking the 
 processional array by night. Down the dark
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 6 1 
 
 streets tramped the white horses, their riders 
 now in gleaming armour, or fantastically garbed 
 like chieftains of the Magyars or of the barbaric 
 East. Two by two the riders went, and betwixt 
 each couple not fewer than twoscore ten stalwart 
 men on foot, each waving a burning torch in one 
 hand and carrying an unsheathed sword in the 
 other, so that it caught and flashed forth a 
 hundred lights. The horses themselves were 
 a sight to see, in their rich accoutrements ! 
 Thereafter came a high car, garlanded with 
 flowers and draperies and many rare devices. 
 And all this to the laughter of men and women, 
 the neighing of the stallions, the clanking of 
 weapons, the sputtering of the torches, the 
 shrill shrieks of Greek fifes, and the furious 
 challenging blare of fivescore brazen trumpets ! 
 Ay, these were goodly sights, though none 
 equalled my Masquerade of Death, which is 
 none other than the idea whereof I wrote a 
 little ago : and of which men speak eagerly to 
 this day, some with pleasant awe and dainty 
 shudderings, others crossing themselves and 
 muttering of devilish imaginations and Anti- 
 christ and papal maledictions. 
 
 I made my Car of Death in such secrecy in 
 the Hall of the Pope, that none — no ! not one —
 
 62 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 saw it aforehand. Then I made all arrange- 
 ments, not only in mine own privacy, but where- 
 soever the procession should pass by ; and these 
 arrangements included the way itself, for I had 
 special purposes to fulfil. And all who gave me 
 of their service did so under a bond of secrecy, 
 for after a while it became impossible to hide, 
 from some at least of my assistants, either the 
 parts or the whole of my scheme. There were 
 two of my pupils who were of especial service 
 to me, both named Andrea. The one is still 
 called Andrea di Cosimo : the other, a greater 
 than his master, is known throughout all the 
 lands northward of Rome, and even to France, 
 as Andrea del Sarto. He was brought to me by 
 my friend Gian' Barile, the Florentine painter, 
 as a youth of exceeding promise ; and I came 
 to love him, almost as the good Cosimo Rosselli 
 loved me. He was ever a Passionate of art, 
 from the days when he spent his leisure hours 
 staring at the frescoes by Leonardo and Michel- 
 Angelo in this very Hall of the Pope where I 
 made my Car of Death. Rumours have reached 
 me in mine old age that Andrea del Sarto, 
 whom I see no more (whom do I see, I, Piero 
 di Cosimo, " the mad painter," lonely as the 
 falling star that last night swept the circuit of
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 63 
 
 the heavens, and flashed into an oblivion of 
 darkness beyond human ken ?) — rumours, I say, 
 have reached me that Andrea declareth my 
 Procession of Death symbolised the return of 
 the Medici. This is false. It is one to me 
 whether the Medici feed upon the taxes of the 
 Florentines, or upon those of any alien city. 
 My device was of fantastical delight and a 
 brooding imagination ; and I have thought of 
 stranger things still, but have scarce dared 
 even to suggest them. 
 
 Thus was it, then, in the height of the Car- 
 nival. My great triumphal car, instead of being 
 drawn by prancing horses and gaily decorated, 
 was yoked to black buffaloes, each of sombre 
 and terrible seeming, with horns overlaid with 
 whitest plaster, and with eyes made hollowly 
 red and burning with virulent pigments. The 
 car itself was all hung in black sweeping drape- 
 ries, gloomful as a starless and moonless night 
 with imminence of rain ; very dolorous to look 
 upon ; and yet not the less so because, every 
 here and there, painted with whitely gleaming 
 dead men's bones and broad crosses. High up 
 on the car sat the gigantic figure of Death him- 
 self, dreadful of aspect, and holding in one out- 
 stretched hand his ever thirsting and hungering
 
 64 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 scythe. Beneath him, huddled round the huge 
 throne whereon he sat, were dismal tombs, 
 blank and awful. Before the slow-moving car 
 and lowering buffaloes, and after it likewise, 
 rode a great number of the dead on horseback, 
 all singing in a trembling voice the Miserere. 
 The sight made many quake, and some who 
 laughed broke into sobs. And at those places 
 where, in former carnivals, the triumphal pro- 
 cession was wont to stop for a sweet and joyous 
 singing, and for the interchange of blythe and 
 happy mockeries and good fortunes, it now 
 stopped also ; but, instead, the tombs upon the 
 huge car opened, and thence crawled, or glided, 
 or sprang forth figures garbed in close-fitting 
 black, all painted over with the insignia of 
 death, the grinning skull, the long-jointed arms 
 and legs, and all the bones of the human 
 skeleton. These dreadful things moved close 
 one to another ; and then, to the drear 
 accompaniments of muffled strains, sang, in 
 a most melancholy music, that solemn chant 
 beginning — 
 
 "■Dolor, pianto e penitenza" etc. 
 It was a strange sight. Many, it is said, dream 
 
 of it still. 
 
 * * # # *
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 65 
 
 After a still evening, and a sunsetting sky of 
 the most marvellous delicate green, with pale 
 lemon-yellow spaces beyond, the weather has 
 changed. I noted how low the fireflies flittered 
 among the under-branches of the guelder-rose 
 and around the bole of my old yew, and how 
 sultry their wandering lights. The voices of 
 the dogs barking in the gardens of Fiesole came 
 down the slopes no more clear and sharp, but 
 as though from afar, and muffled, as in a dense 
 snowing. Nothing crackled in the garden. 
 That strange beast out of Araby or Cathay, 
 which Messer Antonio gave me in exchange 
 for my portrait of him, made a mewing noise, 
 very weird, yet not like any cat or other animal 
 I have known — rather like a mad person mouth- 
 ing in vague fear. Methought it might be a lost 
 soul. If — if I 
 
 The rain at last ! Streaming, rushing, pour- 
 ing down ; the garden-ways aflood ; the house- 
 vents spouting forth upon the streets ! Most 
 joyous of sounds ! Oh, would I were striding 
 along, singing my Song of Death, amid the 
 now wind-furied glades, in tempestuous Vallom- 
 
 brosa ! 
 
 *****
 
 66 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 II* 
 
 Yesterday I completed a series of drawings of 
 strange animals, similar to those of dragons, and 
 other rare creatures, which I made for Giuliano 
 de' Medici. I have often wondered if, in some 
 far country, a fortunate traveller will not unex- 
 pectedly come upon those half-human creatures 
 of which legends tell us. How well I remember 
 going to a wild rocky place on the Pisan shore, 
 in hope to see the golden hair and white breasts 
 and waving arms of those Ladies of the Deep 
 of whom I heard oft in my boyhood : or, at the 
 very least, to catch the delicate sweet forlornness 
 of their alien singing ! One night — it seems but 
 yester eve as I recall it — I lay in a heathy dingle, 
 watching the moonlight resting like the caressing 
 hand of God upon the tired earth : and listening 
 to the deep undertone of the ancient Sea, as he 
 laid his lips against the shore and murmured, in 
 a tongue unknown to men, secrets of Oblivion, 
 and dull, remote prophecies. There was an 
 
 * The following excerpts, all that remain of Piero's Journal, 
 are plainly of a considerably later date than those just given. 
 The postscript by Antonio del Monte is written on the page 
 immediately succeeding that containing Piero's latest entry. 
 There is some further writing below the ' Requiescat,' 
 apparently in Latin, but, save for a few letters, indecipherable.
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 6j 
 
 absolute hush in the air. Now and again the 
 pinging sound of a gnat deepened the profound 
 stillness. Almost I fancied that I heard the 
 serene aerial chiming of the stars. While I lay 
 there adream, mine ears caught the sound of a 
 faint splashing. I thought it was a fish, leaping 
 in silver upon a moongold wave to snap at a 
 wandering firefly. Then as the sound waxed 
 more distinct and without intermission, I con- 
 ceived the idea that the sirens were swimming 
 landward, and I caught myself listening eagerly 
 for that wild fantastic music which lures mari- 
 ners to the doom of which no man knoweth the 
 manner or fulness. Suddenly I heard a low 
 laugh. The sweet humanity of it acted upon 
 me like the dawn after a night of gloom. As 
 silently as the doe lifts her head from the fern- 
 covert when she scents from afar off the prowl- 
 ing wolf, I raised myself. Per Bacco ! was I 
 still adream ? . . . I wondered. A beautiful 
 girl ran to and fro along the sea- marge, her 
 ivory limbs splashing far and wide the foam 
 of each long, low, wave. Her hair drifted 
 behind her like the tresses of a wind-blown 
 larch. Her beautiful naked body gleamed in 
 the moonlight, and as she moved hither and 
 thither, now swiftly as though pursued, now 
 
 f — 2
 
 68 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 with dainty listlessness, I thought that I had 
 never seen aught lovelier. A little cape ran 
 out from the shore, and as she neared it she 
 laughed low again and again : low, and yet so 
 that I heard it easily. It thrilled me unspeak- 
 ably. There was in it such unfathomable pain, 
 and yet with — oh, such a subtle rare magic of 
 delight ! I felt that I could — nay, that I would — 
 follow that low-haunting laugh, and that ideal 
 beauty, even to the ends of the earth, even 
 though I were led into places of death, unspeak- 
 able because of their terror. Suddenly she — 
 this thing of beauty and grace — disappeared as 
 in a wave, and I saw her no more. With the 
 speed of a man fleeing for his life I raced towards 
 the beach. Strange that I should notice, and 
 for a second or two halt, because of the shrill 
 sudden cry of an aziola. It mocked me, I 
 thought. But when I reached the shore, nought 
 was there. There was the same vast stretch of 
 the moonlit deep : the same long low wave, for 
 ever breaking in foam out of stillness, like the 
 froth upon a dying man's lips : the same inscru- 
 table silence on sea and land, save for the ping- 
 ing of the gnats below the cystus-bushes, and the 
 low thrilling monotone out of the heart of the 
 waters. Hastily I ran out upon the little cape :
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 69 
 
 but no, nought could I see beyond it or close 
 under. Had I, then, beheld one of those myste- 
 rious creatures who live in Ocean, and lament 
 a lost humanity ? I wandered all night long by 
 the margin of the sea, but heard no unwonted 
 sound, save the crying of a strange bird far 
 waveward : saw no unusual sight, save a furtive 
 phosphorescence which came and went upon 
 the dark surface of the waters, like an evil 
 smile upon the face of an Oriental satrap 
 dreaming of cruel delights. But about dawn 
 I met a haggard fisherman, who stared at 
 me blankly and muttered some foolishness. 
 From him, in reply to my eager questions, I 
 learned that one Mariana, the daughter of a 
 gentleman of Pisa, had recently become dis- 
 traught because of the exceeding beauty of a 
 youth of whom she had dreamt — because of his 
 surpassing loveliness, but still more because of 
 his visionary immortality, which could not mate 
 with her earthliness. She had passed through 
 Pisa as one dazed, and had been seen at sun- 
 down watching the inward — moving tide, and 
 laughing strangely to herself the while. None 
 had seen or heard of her since. But this 
 had occurred many days — ay, weeks — before 
 mine own adventure. To this day, in all verity,
 
 yO JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 I khow not whether 'twas Mariana of Pisa 
 whom I saw passing like a dream through the 
 wave, or some Donna Ignota born of the moon- 
 shine and the sea. 
 
 ***** 
 
 To-night, as I walked in my wilderness (so 
 I lovingly call my garden), filled full as it is 
 with all manner of strange things and desolate 
 growths, I noticed an unwonted flashing of red 
 lights. Ever and again it happened, and once 
 so that I was almost dazzled. At first I thought 
 some rare creature, a lizard or salamander from 
 afar, or it might be some gem or old-time 
 weapon, lay amid the mould ; but at the last 
 I found to my surprise that this flashing of 
 light was caused by two or three blooms among 
 a cluster of nasturtiums. One, in particular, 
 glowed like the lantern of a monk in a dark wine- 
 vault. I knew not till then that flowers gave 
 off this mysterious effulgence, though, now I 
 think of it, Suleiman has told me that he has 
 seen something of the kind in the region beyond 
 Nilus. It has made me think. Perhaps all 
 created things give off some coloured emana- 
 tion. I should like to paint the people going 
 to and fro in the streets of Florence, with all 
 their hidden sins made visible in furtive flashes
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO J\ 
 
 of scarlet and purple, and wan green and yel- 
 low, and bloodied red ! Cristo, how the Medici 
 would reward me for my pains if I painted 
 them ! 'T would be a short shrift then for the 
 hermit-painter, Piero di Cosimo ! Nay, but 
 seriously, what if some of us have this quality ? 
 'T would account for the divers strange and 
 terrifying apparitions of the dead, of which 
 rumour is oft, in the dark hours, so garrulous. 
 (On the morrow.) 
 I slept little last night, for a deep brooding 
 over the thing of which I have writ above. I 
 have decided to tell Alessandro Bardi that I 
 shall paint him and his Caterina after all. How 
 I hate old Luigi Bardi ! The insolence of the 
 purse-proud man ! How dared he insult me 
 that day on the Ponte Vecchio ? — sneering at 
 me as a madman because I had stood staring 
 for an hour or more upon the marvellous violet 
 lights in the shallow flood of Arno, laughing 
 loudly while I told him that that violet had to 
 be waited for for weeks at a time ; mocking with 
 his twisted mouth, " Violet ! violet ! Covpo di 
 Cristo, hark to the man ! He cannot even see 
 aright !" Fool that he was ! Howsoever, it is 
 true that painters see deeper into colour, as 
 falconers see further than goldsmiths. And yet,
 
 72 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 because of his ducats, he thought he could 
 obtain a portrait of his son and his mistress 
 from me ! No doubt — si, si, amico mio — you 
 shall have the portrait — ecco ! Piero di Cosimo 
 shall paint your son and the twilight-eyed 
 Caterina. 
 
 <fz TP tP "?ff "*F 
 
 'Tis a month since I have writ aught in these 
 pages- Alessandro and Caterina are both dead : 
 died o' the plague, it is said. I know better. 
 
 They came to me. I made that a condition. 
 I painted both upon one canvas. A comely 
 youth, Alessandro : Caterina's beauty, melan- 
 choly, exquisite, like an autumnal eve on the 
 Maremma. How they loved each other ! Oft- 
 times I laid down my brush, and once I burst 
 into laughter so loud and so long that Bardi, 
 the good youth, hesitatingly came towards me, 
 as a stag might approach a hyena. But I waved 
 him back, with muttered execrations. Had he 
 gained but one glimpse of my canvas he would 
 have slain me forthwith. Oftener, I simulated 
 great abstraction in labour, and watched them 
 furtively. Her favourite attitude was to lean 
 her head against his breast, and then, many a 
 time, she sang a wondrous sweet song of the 
 Trevisan (whereof she was a native), so that
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 73 
 
 my tawdry workroom became glorified, I know 
 not how. His pleasure was to stroke her long 
 lustrous hair, and to look dreamily into those 
 shadowy eyes of hers, where immortality seemed 
 to brood amid depths of death. She was with 
 child, and oft looked suddenly at naught, in a 
 wild trouble, as I have seen a white hart do at 
 the falling echo of a far-off baying hound. Ah ! 
 this terrible brutality of motherhood. It is a 
 device of nature to humiliate the soul, of which 
 she is jealous unto death. She has disguised 
 it in a rainbow, as a Borgia might convey a 
 debilitating, slow-killing poison in an exquisite 
 rose. . . . Well, I watched them oft. The 
 other eventide I was sitting alone, brooding 
 upon the frightful thing before me, all but 
 finished it was, when Suleiman entered. I did 
 not hear him knock, nor do I believe he did, 
 though he so averred. He is a dark and evil 
 spirit. He stared at my canvas, and an awful 
 look lurked about his eyes and mouth. Then 
 he laughed. Thereafter he told me that he, too, 
 bore a bitter grudge against Luigi Bardi. Dio 
 mio, how it thrilled me when the swart Oriental 
 — Suleiman el Moro, he calls himself, though 
 hell knows his accursed name — confessed that 
 he had woven a spell upon my brushes, so that
 
 74 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 demons had entered into them. " To what 
 end?" I asked, with my tongue moving like 
 a wounded thing in time o' drought. " So that 
 when Luigi Bardi's son and his love look upon 
 your painting they shall become what you have 
 depicted them." In horror I rose, thrust the 
 grim saturnine Suleiman aside, and ran from 
 the house, as one pursued by a demon. For I 
 had painted Alessandro as the Lust of a Devil, 
 and Caterina as the Desire of a Beast. 'Twas 
 a wild revenge upon Bardi : but now God had 
 turned it against me. I stayed all the night 
 with Antonio del Monte, moaning so, at times, 
 that he cried to me at last a wolf were fitter 
 company. On the morrow, filled with remorse, 
 and resolved to end my folly, I hastened back 
 to my house. As I passed under the shadow 
 of the Duomo I met Pietro Avante, who asked 
 me if I had heard that Sandro Bardi and 
 Caterina Da Ru had gone secretly from 
 Florence — so it was said, at the least, for 
 nowhere were they to be found. My heart 
 sank deep, deep, though I put a brave front 
 against disastrous fate. At the end of the 
 Borgo di San Sepolcro my late pupil, Giraldo 
 da Signa, stopped me, and asked me if I knew 
 whither Suleiman el Moro was bound. "Where-
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 75 
 
 fore?" I asked. "Because, as I was going 
 home, an hour before dawn — having been at 
 the carousal of Berto Danoli, who is returning 
 to Venice as the heir of his old uncle Benedetto 
 — curse him for a miser! — I descried El Moro 
 riding upon a white horse, and methought he 
 had the face of a corpse as he stared, in his 
 swift passing, towards the way of the Pisan 
 Gate.' ' I know not, fool,' I muttered ; 'think 
 you the accursed Egyptian, or whatever he be, 
 is my son ? ' But thereafter I hurried with 
 trembling limbs to my house. When I entered 
 the workroom I thought my heart-strings would 
 break : 'twas as though my heart were a wet cloth 
 wrung by a woman on Arno-side. There lay 
 Alessandro Bardi and Caterina, not only dead, 
 but horrible in death: with a likeness, appalling, 
 frightful, to their ghastly phantasma on the can- 
 vas. I know not how they died : whether she 
 shrieked and fell (they must have come earlier 
 than their wont, and seized the opportunity to 
 look at my canvas), or whether he turned and 
 slew her and then strangled himself, or whether 
 demons wrought their death, I know not. They 
 looked as though they had died of the Black 
 Pest. Hastily I dashed paint this way and that 
 across my accursed picture, and scraped the
 
 76 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 distorted features with the palette knife, till it 
 
 was as ghastly a ruin as the love of Sandro and 
 
 Caterina. Then again I rushed out, crying, 
 
 * The Pest ! the Pest ! ' At first I was taken for 
 
 mad. I know not how it might have gone with 
 
 me; but the authorities, fearing to have even the 
 
 name of the plague mentioned, sent for, and 
 
 privily removed, the two dead bodies, and had 
 
 them burned on a waste spot half a league 
 
 behind the wester slope of Fiesole. And now 
 
 it is all over — all gone — all done. It might be 
 
 a horror of the night, but for this letter from 
 
 Luigi Bardi, with its awful curse ; but for this 
 
 oily, dull-savoured, blood-red pebble, come to 
 
 me this morning, whence I know not, without 
 
 word of any kind, without indication, save the 
 
 word 'Suleiman' cried hollowly behind me by — 
 
 by — something. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Old age is terrible when manhood is prosti- 
 tuted in it. It ought to be as full of peace and 
 beauty as a snow-covered landscape in sunlight, 
 as happy as a child's laughter among unfolding 
 blossoms. To be a derelict upon the ocean of 
 life is worse than any sudden wreckage. Death 
 itself can never be truly abject : living death is 
 the grave : corruption.
 
 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO J J 
 
 Sorely distraught have I been of late. No 
 sound could I withstand. The very sight of 
 priests, monks, councillors, any one almost, of 
 flies and shadows even, has made me quiver 
 like an aspen. Oftentimes I have thrown down 
 my brushes, cursing, because of my impotent 
 hands. They would give me medicine. There 
 is but one potion for me. They would poison 
 me, no doubt. But I am already dead. O God, 
 the beauty of the world ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 'Tis all one ravening horror. And I have 
 worshipped Nature ! Fool — fool — fool that I 
 was ! It is a Monster with a passion for Death. 
 It is a Creature, devouring, insatiable. We are 
 but the froth blown for a moment above its 
 churning jaws. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Is there anything more beautiful than a wind- 
 less midsummer eve, within the hour of moon- 
 rise ? Nothing stirs, save the flittering bats. 
 The slow-circling fireflies swing their flames 
 among the cypress boughs. Nature is dead, or 
 asleep. God leans downward wistfully, and 
 looks betwixt the stars of His azure veil upon 
 the world the foolish priests say is His. Some- 
 where in the unsunned gyres of infinity, the
 
 78 JOURNALS OF PIERO DI COSIMO 
 
 unknown God, the third and conquering Pro- 
 tagonist, looks upward, with dim prevision, 
 beyond the twin Portals of his Rest — Oblivion 
 and Chaos. 
 
 ***** 
 
 (Appended in the Script of Messer Antonio del 
 Monte, Chemist and Naturalist, of Florence.) 
 Y ester-morn, not having seen the maestro for many 
 days, and knowing how his madness has been growing 
 upon him, I went through his desolate garden, strewn 
 with the bones of the many rare beasts and what not 
 he hath purchased from me, and ruinous with decay 
 and damp vicious glooms, and then up the broken 
 marble stairs to his door. There was a weight against 
 it. I pushed it to, and lo, the corpse of Pier o, with a 
 most awful horror on its face, lying head towards me. 
 with the feet still upon the stairway. I note this here 
 at once, lest any questioning should arise. Here, also, 
 I record his own wish, told me but a half-month ago, 
 that he was to be buried in his garden, betwixt a great 
 heavy iron crucifix that would cover him, and an 
 equally huge and heavy iron cross. Upon the former 
 was to be engraved the single word, SPES, upon the 
 latter, NATURA. 
 (Requiescat in Pace : Antonio Barili del Monte.)
 
 THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND 
 RESURRECTION OE A TEAR
 
 To A. C.
 
 THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION 
 OF A TEAR 
 
 It is not only the haschisch eater who can, in 
 a moment, pass from the exigent life of the 
 commonplace to the dear tyranny of dreams. 
 How trivial, how laboriously methodical, is 
 that vulgar approach to pleasure — the pipe of 
 the opium-smoker, or the drugged coffee of the 
 slave of Indian hemp. 
 
 There is another avenue to the gate of 
 dreams. Those who have the secret may 
 enter at any moment from the maze of life 
 and move swiftly to the goal : more swift than 
 the desert mare, the fieetfoot wind. 
 
 Thus it was, that to-day, when amid ordinary 
 surroundings, and alone with a dear friend to 
 whom I had come to say farewell — a word un- 
 said after all, and this because of a dream — I 
 was suaded from myself by one of those unex- 
 
 G
 
 82 THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND 
 
 peeked visionary reveries which relieve even 
 the weariest days of the dreamer. 
 
 It was not willingly I had gone to see my 
 friend. My love for her had grown too bitter, 
 and at last I had come to believe that she was 
 of a hard and cynical spirit. But for my own 
 sake, as well as for what lay beyond, I deter- 
 mined to make an end of what was become 
 intolerable. Nor was I allured from my pur- 
 pose by her beauty, her grace, her exquisitely 
 restrained cordiality. The bitterness of renun- 
 ciation, the greater bitterness of a conviction 
 that she felt only with the brain and the nerves, 
 and not with the heart, restrained me. 
 
 "We had talked of many things of no real 
 moment, and yet I was no nearer what I had 
 to say. I remembered the words of a friend 
 who also had loved her, and loved vainly: 
 " She is beautiful as the sea, and as cold, as 
 emotionless, as deadly cruel." 
 
 I know not by what accident it was that, as 
 she stooped over the silver tea-tray, which 
 caught the vagrant glow of the fire — all of 
 light and sound there was in that quietude of 
 dusk — a sparkle as of a diamond came from 
 behind the long dark eyelashes which so greatly 
 enhanced her beauty. It was an unshed tear ;
 
 RESURRECTION OF A TEAR 83 
 
 for I saw it glimmer like a dewdrop amid 
 twilight shadows, then suspend tremulously. 
 Yet it did not fall at last down that lovely 
 sunbrown cheek no bloom of any " sun'd Sep- 
 tember apricock " could outvie : as dew it came 
 and was absorbed again. 
 
 Whether the dear surprise, or the mere white 
 glimmer of that errant herald from the heart, 
 fascinated me, I know not ; but suddenly my 
 mind was in that motionless suspension which 
 the windhover has when she lifts her breast 
 against a sudden tide of air. 
 
 I saw before me, and far behind, a lustrous 
 expanse of waters. The sun-dazzle was upon 
 those nearest to me, and the wind, frothing the 
 little gold and silver cups tossed continuously 
 by the blue wavelets, made a sunny laughter 
 for leagues amid the yellow-meaded prairies of 
 azure. Beyond, the saffron shimmer lay upon 
 hyacinthine hollows deepening to limitless 
 spaces of purple. Then the sky-line and 
 the sea-line met, and blue within blue was 
 lost. 
 
 I had scarce apprehended the vast extent, 
 the near witching beauty, when I realised that 
 I was submerged in fathomless depths. I had 
 not fallen, and had no sense of falling : rather, 
 
 G— 2
 
 84 THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND 
 
 without sound or motion, the depths had in- 
 visibly expanded, and now enfolded me. 
 
 So wrought by wonder was I, that when I 
 saw a green lawn stretching before me I did 
 not know whether to advance or to look upon 
 it as one of the fluid lawns of the sea. Then 
 I reflected that in the depths the sea-water 
 would not be of a sunlit green. The next 
 moment I was walking swiftly across it, and 
 I remember how soft and springy was the turf 
 beneath my feet. 
 
 All sense of the marvellous had now left me. 
 When, overhead, I heard the rapturous song of 
 lark after lark, I was no more astonished. Why 
 should I be, when my eyes were filled with the 
 beauty of the wild-roses which fell in veils over 
 the wilding hedges and almost hid the honey- 
 suckle and fragrant briar: when every sense 
 was charmed by the loveliness of each garth 
 and copse I passed on my way into a woodland, 
 in whose recesses I could hear the cooing of 
 doves and the windy chimes of cascades and 
 singing brooks ? 
 
 Never had I seen any forest so beautiful. As 
 I advanced, the trees had an aspect of ancient 
 grandeur, or of a loveliness which went to my 
 heart. Avenue after avenue, vista after vista,
 
 RESURRECTION OF A TEAR 85 
 
 disclosed innumerable perspectives of green 
 foliage and the hues of a myriad flowers, with 
 golden sunlight breaking everywhere, and over- 
 head and between the high boughs a sky of a 
 deep joy-giving blue. White birds, and others 
 rainbow-hued, drifted through the sun-warm 
 spaces or flashed from branch to branch. 
 The fern quivered every here and there with 
 the leaping of the fawns, the bleating of the 
 does audible the while by some unseen water- 
 course. Some of the flowers were familiar: 
 wild hyacinth and windflowers, orchis and the 
 purple anemone, kingcups and daffodils, and 
 many others, all children of the Spring, but 
 otherwise without heed of their wonted season, 
 so that the primrose and the wild-rose were 
 neighbours, and snowdrops and aconites clus- 
 tered under the red hawthorn. 
 
 But there were also others which were strange. 
 Many of these seemed to me as though rubies 
 and emeralds and rainbow-hued opals had 
 risen from their rocky beds in the depths 
 of the earth, and stolen to the surface, and 
 bared their breasts to the kisses of the 
 sunflame which gave them life and joy even 
 while it consumed them with its passionate 
 ardour.
 
 86 THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND 
 
 The birds, too, were wonderful to behold. 
 There were among them what seemed blooms 
 of pink or azure fire with wings of waving light : 
 and the song of these was so wilderingly sweet 
 that Ecstasy and Silence, walking hand in hand 
 through that Eden of Dream, knew not when 
 they became one, the Joy that cannot be seen 
 nor uttered nor divined. 
 
 Through all this loveliness I went as one 
 wrought by the gladness of death. Some such 
 rapture as this must oftentimes allure the libe- 
 rated soul when, the veil rent, the air of a new 
 and stronger delight is inhaled at every breath. 
 
 Then, all at once, I knew I was not alone in 
 that lovely Avalon. Voices of surpassing sweet- 
 ness prevailed through the green branches. I 
 thought at first that the whispering leaves were 
 the sighs and laughter of the happy dead. One 
 haunting sweet voice I followed, a delicate, 
 remote, exquisite ululation, faint as dream- 
 music across the dark sea of sleep. Like one 
 winged I went, for the trees slid motionlessly 
 by, as, to the wind, they must seem to recede 
 from his lifting pinions. 
 
 In the very inmost Eden of that paradise I 
 stood at last, silent, intent. Beside a fount, 
 whose crystalline wave was filled with sun-gold
 
 RESURRECTION OF A TEAR 87 
 
 and frothed with sun-dazzle, bent a spirit of 
 a loveliness of which I cannot speak. She was 
 as though she were a beam of light from the 
 places, east of the sun and west of the moon, 
 where the young seraphim for joy reweave the 
 perishing rainbows. 
 
 About her were beautiful tremulous phantoms, 
 coming and going, appearing and vanishing. 
 These were joys and hopes, aspirations and 
 unspoken prayers, dear desires and longings 
 and wistful yearnings, fair thoughts and delicate 
 dreams. 
 
 From her I looked into that halcyon water. 
 The sparkle, the shine of it, entranced me. 
 
 At last I spoke. She turned, glanced at me 
 with a shy, sweet serenity, and, after a brief 
 incertitude, beckoned to me to approach. 
 
 I knew that I had never looked upon any one 
 so lovely ; yet, her face was vaguely familiar. 
 Doubtless it was Ideala, long sought, long 
 dreamed of. 
 
 " Look," she whispered, as soon as she had 
 slipped her hand into mine. Together we bent 
 over the sunlit fount. It was like an opal in 
 its lovely hues. In the very core of it I saw 
 what seemed the most exquisite pearl. This 
 appeared to me to be forming, for every moment
 
 88 THE BIRTH, DEATH, AND 
 
 it grew lovelier. Suddenly it rose, came to the 
 surface, and, for a few seconds, was filled with 
 sunlight, before it welled into one of the many 
 golden conduits which, I now noticed, led from 
 the fountain. 
 
 A few seconds : yet in that single pulse of 
 time I learned a wonderful thing. " Do you 
 see this fount ? " said Ideala again, in the same 
 low thrilling whisper : " it is the heart of my 
 heart." 
 
 " Of your heart, O beautiful Dream ? " 
 
 " Yes. Do you not know that you are now in 
 my heart ? All this fair Eden you have traversed, 
 since you came from the deep wave that brought 
 you hither, is my heart. You saw the flowers, 
 you heard the songs of the birds, the voice of 
 cool waters, the murmur of strange winds : 
 Did none interpret to you ? 
 
 " And all these lovely phantoms, these beau- 
 tiful Hopes and Aspirations and tender Sympa- 
 thies and brave Heroisms ? " 
 
 " They are my helpers and servers ; but I do 
 not see them." 
 
 " And this fount, this sunlit water ? " 
 
 " It is the Fount of Tears that is in every 
 woman's heart. Now it is warmed with flood- 
 ing sunshine, because I love. Thus it is that
 
 RESURRECTION OF A TEAR 89 
 
 the tears that rise are single just now : and are 
 so beautiful, wrought as they are of rainbow- 
 hope." 
 
 " And who are you ? " I cried, a sudden, wild, 
 passionate hope coming upon me like a tempest, 
 making me as a leaf before the wind. 
 
 She looked at me amazedly. 
 
 Her lips moved, but I caught no sound. A 
 swift mist was rising between us. She had 
 withdrawn her hand, and though eagerly I 
 stretched my arms I could not reach her. 
 
 A name, the dearest of all names, burst from 
 my lips. I saw a wonderful light in the beauti- 
 ful face. The eyes, the eyes told me all. Lamps 
 of home, sweet lamps of home ! 
 
 There was a rush of waters. The tear I had 
 seen welling from her heart was the same as that 
 which died on her eyes, and had in its death borne 
 me to the lovely sanctuaries of her heart. Again, 
 it expanded into a great wave ; again a limitless 
 ocean stretched beyond me ; again I was enve- 
 loped and borne swiftly from depth below to 
 depth above, till the senses for one flashing 
 second reeled as the soul returned from its 
 moment's flight. 
 
 Did I say an unshed tear gleamed upon me 
 from behind the dark eyelashes of her whom I
 
 90 RESURRECTION OF A TEAR 
 
 loved, and so little understood, so scarcely knew ? 
 
 Truly, I saw it glimmer like a dewdrop amid 
 twilight shadows : then suspend tremulously : 
 but now — how long ago, or but the breath of a 
 moment ? — that which had been borne in long- 
 ing and had died in pain, knew, now, a lovely 
 resurrection. 
 
 My heart was full of a great joy, a great 
 reverence. I rose, trembled, and at that mo- 
 ment the tear fell down the lovely sunbrown 
 cheek no bloom of any "sun'd September apri- 
 cock " could outvie.
 
 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION
 
 To A. M. C.
 
 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION 
 
 The June sunshine moved upon me like a flood. 
 In my sleep, or drowsy reverie, as I lay in the 
 hollow of the tamarisk-fringed dunes which 
 formed the frontier between the forest and the 
 sea, I could hear the two most thrilling voices 
 of Nature— the murmur of a slow wind meshed 
 among green branches, and the confused whis- 
 pered tumult of great waters. 
 
 The unwontedly sustained crying of a gull 
 caused me to stir, turn, and lean on my elbows, 
 with my face against the near waving of the 
 birches which ran out from the woodland. A 
 score of yards to the right, a boulder rose from 
 a garth of fern. Its forehead was white with 
 bleached sea-moss, its sides golden with lichen ; 
 and like a white magnolia-bloom upon it was a 
 snowy fulmar, crouching in pain. I saw that 
 the poor bird had been wounded, and as it
 
 94 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION 
 
 attempted to rise, at the moment I stirred, I 
 could see that it had been shot, for the left 
 wing was helplessly adroop. 
 
 If the fulmar would let me approach, I 
 believed I could ease its agony ; but, alas, 
 man is the apparition of Death to his weaker 
 comrades in the common heritage of life. By 
 his own madness of wrong and cruelty he has 
 forfeited that elder brotherhood which should 
 be his pride as it is natively his right. 
 
 How, indeed, as it was through the wanton 
 act of a man that the bird had been given over 
 to prolonged agony and sure death, could it 
 have been otherwise ; yet it was with deep 
 disappointment that, after I had been allowed 
 to approach within a few yards' distance, the 
 fulmar suddenly hurled itself into the fern. 
 There, like a wounded duck among sedge and 
 bulrush, it floundered heavily in a wild and 
 despairing panic. 
 
 From the sky, a living blue, came the songs 
 of unseen larks : from the woodland, the cooing 
 of cushats, the sweet chitter of small birds, the 
 blithe notes of throstle and mavis : from the 
 sea, the chime of green wavelets running up 
 foamy channels or leaping along among the 
 shallows, and, beyond, that deep mysterious
 
 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION 95 
 
 rhythm that contains the pulse of Time. Peace 
 brooded upon sky, and sea, and land ; but, 
 like a laugh from hell heard among the alleys 
 of paradise, the screaming of the wounded 
 gull turned the sweet savour of life into 
 bitterness. 
 
 It was at this moment I became aware of a 
 rumour in the forest. From beech and chest- 
 nut, from lime and tall elm, from scyamore and 
 hazel, came a ripple of sweet notes, a rustle 
 of wings. The beech-mast crackled with the 
 scurrying of rabbits. Young foxes, wood-hares, 
 squirrels, stirred through the bracken round the 
 great-rooted oaks. Across the dry water-course 
 the shrew-mice pattered. 
 
 It was not consternation, for there were no 
 startled cries, no reckless flight. The jay 
 screamed no warning ; the single snapping 
 bark of the fox was unheard. 
 
 Suddenly I stood as though entranced. I 
 saw a woman, clothed in white, moving through 
 the sun-splashed woodland. So radiant was the 
 warm white of her robe, that the leaf and branch- 
 shadows, trailing on the golden light that overlay 
 the moss, seemed pale blue. 
 
 Through the branches over her head a myriad 
 company of birds hovered, from the wandering
 
 96 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION 
 
 cuckoo to the shy ringdove, from the missel- 
 thrush to the wren. I saw the falcon flying 
 harmlessly among the chaffinches, and a wind- 
 hover moving unheeded among the crowd of 
 fluttering sparrows. 
 
 Around, and behind her, were animals of all 
 kinds. By her side, wild fawns, stretching their 
 long necks towards her, blessed her with the 
 unconscious benediction of their eyes. One 
 small fawn was dappled red as with autumnal 
 leaves, or as with blood. It moved by her right, 
 and seemed to live only by the love and pity 
 wherewith she sustained it, by healing hand or 
 caressing touch. In her breast was a spot of 
 dull red. I thought it was blood, but it was 
 only a wounded robin which she had rescued 
 from the snare of the bird-trapper. It slept 
 against the warmth of her bosom : its tiny pulse 
 of life lifting the small ruddy breast in rhythm 
 with the larger rise and fall. 
 
 The woman was young, in the beautiful youth 
 of those who are not of this world. On her face, 
 fair with charity, sweet with lovingkindness, 
 there was the trouble of something unfulfilled. 
 Her eyes, which mirrored the passionate tender- 
 ness of her heart, were intent upon somewhat 
 I could not see : some goal within the sunlit
 
 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION 97 
 
 greenery, beyond the dim vistas of misty light, 
 of verdurous gloom ; or, perhaps, upon horizons 
 I could not discern. 
 
 I should have taken her for a vision, a spirit, 
 but that I saw how womanly sweet she was. 
 The white soul within her was known of every 
 dumb or dwarfed soul among those glad bond- 
 agers of her spell, from the falcon to the timid 
 rabbits which leaped before her way like living 
 surf. Moreover, she could see and hear what 
 mortal eyes and ears could ; for suddenly she 
 caught sight of the dying gull. Swift as a wave 
 she was beside it. With deft hands she eased 
 the broken wing : with gentle touch she stilled 
 the fierce pulsation. The bird looked upon her 
 as he might have scanned a sunlit sea. A new 
 light came into his eyes : a thrill shook his now 
 elastic body ; and though death darkened his life, 
 the spirit which had animated him was set free, 
 and was borne seaward by the wind. 
 
 As she rose, for she had kneeled to lay the 
 white body where the swift chemistry of air and 
 light would work the wise corruption of the life- 
 less into new life, I recognised the face. 
 
 She was one whom I had loved and honoured, 
 whom I love and honour : a woman so wrought 
 by the tragic pain of the weak and helpless, that, 
 
 H
 
 98 THE SISTER OF COMPASSION 
 
 like one whom she followed blindly from afar, 
 she daily laid down her life in order that she 
 might be as balm here, and here might save, 
 and at all times and in all places be a messenger 
 of that tardy redemption which man must make 
 in spirit and deed for the incalculable wrong 
 which he has done to that sacred thing he most 
 values — Life. 
 
 I know not now what that sea was, where 
 that forest is. But I dream, O Sister of Com- 
 passion, what was the mysterious voice of the 
 one whispered in your ears, what the confused 
 murmur of the other echoed in your heart. 
 
 I know not, but I dream ; and I think the 
 forest is that dark wood of human life, that 
 silva oscura of living death or dying life which 
 Dante saw with deep awe : and the sea, that 
 ocean of mystery which involves us with a re. 
 generating air, with a life that is not our own, 
 with horizons of promise, and dim perspectives 
 of inalienable hope. 
 
 And you, dear friend, are you one whom I 
 and others have known and loved ; or had I but 
 a vision of the elect of the Following Love ? 
 Where is the goal you hungered for with those 
 intent eyes, O Sister of Compassion, : what the 
 end, and whither the way ?
 
 THE HILL-WIND 
 
 H — 1
 
 To F. M.
 
 THE HILL-WIND 
 
 When the Hill-Wind awoke by the tarn the 
 noontide heats were over. The blithe mountain- 
 air, fragrant with thyme and honey-ooze, with 
 odours of pine and fir, flowed softly across the 
 uplands. The sky was of a deep, lustrous, 
 wind-washed azure, turquoise-tinct where it 
 caught the sun-flood southerly and westerly. 
 A few snowy wisps of vapour appeared here 
 and there, curled like fantastic sleighs or sweep- 
 ing aloft as the tails of wild horses ; then quickly 
 became attenuated, or even all at once and 
 mysteriously disappeared. Far and near the 
 grouse called, or rose from the cranberry-patches 
 in the ling in their abrupt flurries of flight, beat- 
 ing the hot air with their pinions till it was 
 vibrant with the echoing whirr. The curlews 
 wheeled about the water-courses, crying plain- 
 tively. Faint but haunting sweet as remote
 
 102 THE HILL-WIND 
 
 chimes, the belling of the deer was audible in 
 the mountain-hollows. 
 
 A myriad life thrilled the vast purple upland. 
 The air palpitated with the innumerable suspi- 
 rations of plant and flower, insect and bird and 
 beast. Curious in the tarn the speckled trout 
 caught the glint of the wandering sunray ; far 
 upon the heights the fleeces of the small hill- 
 sheep seemed like patches of snow in the sun- 
 light ; remote on the scaur beyond the highest 
 pines, the eagle, as he stared unwaveringly upon 
 the wilderness beneath him, shone resplendent 
 as though compact of polished bronze set with 
 gems. 
 
 Every sound, every sight, was part of the 
 intimate life of the Hill- Wind. All was beauti- 
 ful : real. The remote attenuated scream of the 
 eagle : the high thin cry of the kestrel when 
 doubling upon herself in hawking the moorland : 
 the floating lilt of the yellow-hammer : the air- 
 eddies sliding through the honey-laden spires 
 of heather, or whispering among the canna 
 and gale : the myriad murmur from the 
 leagues of sunswept ling and from the dim 
 grassy savannahs which underlay that purple 
 roof: each and all were to her as innate 
 voices.
 
 THE HILL-WIND IO3 
 
 For a long time she lay in a happy suspen- 
 sion of all thought or activity, fascinated by the 
 reflection of herself in the tarn. Lovely was 
 the image. The soft, delicately-rounded white 
 limbs, the flower-like body, seemed doubly white 
 against the wine-dark purple of the bell-heather 
 and the paler amethyst of the ling. The large 
 shadowy eyes, like purple-blue pansies, dreamed 
 upward from the face in the water. Beautiful 
 as was the sun-dazzle in the hair that was about 
 her head as a glory of morning, even more 
 beautiful was the shimmer of gold and fleeting 
 amber shot through the rippled surface and 
 clear-brown undercalm of the tarn ; where also 
 was mirrored, with a subtler beauty than above, 
 the tremulous sulphur-butterfly, poising its yel- 
 low wings as it clung to her left breast, ivory- 
 white, small, and firm. 
 
 Dim inarticulate thoughts passed through the 
 mind of the Oread — for an Oread the Hill-Wind 
 had been, long, long ago, beyond many lovely 
 transformations — as she lay dreaming by the 
 mountain-pool. Down what remote avenues of 
 life fared her pilgrim eyes, seeking ancestral 
 goals ; from what immemorial past arose, like 
 flying shadows at dawn, recollections of the 
 fires of sunrise kindling along the mountain-
 
 104 THE HILL-WIND 
 
 summits, of the flames of sunset burning slowly 
 upward from the beech-forests to the extreme 
 pines, sombre torches erelong against the re- 
 motest snows ; vague remembrances of bygone 
 pageants of day and night, of the voicing of 
 old-world winds and the surpassing wonder of 
 the interchange and outgrowth of the seasons, 
 from the Spring Chant of the Equinox to the 
 dirge Euroclydon. Ever and again drifted 
 through her mind fleeting phantoms of life still 
 nearer to herself: white figures, seen in vanishing 
 glimpses of unpondered, all-unconscious reverie 
 — figures which slipt from tree to tree in the 
 high hill-groves, or leaped before the wind, with 
 flying banners of sunlit hair, or stooped to drink 
 from the mountain-pools which the deer forsook 
 not at their approach. Who, what, was this 
 white shape, upon whose milky skin the ruddy 
 fight shone, as he stood on a high ledge at sun- 
 down and looked meditatively upon the twilit 
 valleys and gloomsome underworld far below ? 
 Whose were these unremembered yet familiar 
 sisters, flowerlike in their naked beauty, gather- 
 ing moonflowers for garlands, while their straying 
 feet amid the dew made a silver shimmer as of 
 gossamer-webs by the waterfalls? Who was 
 the lovely vision, so like that mirrored in the
 
 THE HILL-WIND IO5 
 
 tarn before her, who, stooping in the evergreen- 
 glade to drink the moonshine-dew, suddenly 
 lifted her head, listened intently, and smiled 
 with such wild shy joy ? 
 
 What meant those vague half-glimpses, those 
 haunting illusive reminiscences of a past that 
 was yet unrememberable ? 
 
 Troubled, though she knew it not, uncon- 
 sciously perplexed, vaguely yearning with that 
 nostalgia for her ancestral kind which had been 
 born afresh and deeply by the contemplation of 
 her second self in the mountain pool, the Hill- 
 Wind slowly rose, stretched her white arms, 
 with her hands spraying out her golden hair, 
 and gazed longingly into the blue haze beyond. 
 
 Suddenly she started, at the irruption of an 
 unfamiliar sound that was as it were caught up 
 by the wind and flung from corrie to corrie. It 
 was not like the fall of a boulder, and it sounded 
 strangely near. Stooping, she plucked a sprig 
 of gale : then, idly twisting it to and fro, walked 
 slowly to where a mountain-ash, ablaze with scar- 
 let berries, leaned forward from a high heathery 
 bank overlooking a wide hollow in the moors. 
 A great dragon-fly spun past her like an elf's 
 javelin. The small yellow-brown bees circled 
 round and brushed against her hair, excited by
 
 106 THE HILL-WIND 
 
 this new and strange flower that moved about 
 like the hill-sheep or the red deer. As she stood 
 under the shadow of the rowan and leaned against 
 its gnarled trunk, two small blue butterflies 
 wavered up from the heather and danced fantas- 
 tically over the sun-sprent gold above her brow. 
 She laughed, but frowned as a swift swept past 
 and snapt up one of the azure dancers. With 
 a quick gesture she broke off a branch of the 
 rowan, but by this time the other little blue 
 butterfly had wavered off into the sunlight. 
 
 Holding the branch downward she smiled as 
 she saw the whiteness of her limbs beneath the 
 tremulous arrowy leaves and the thick clusters 
 of scarlet and vermilion berries. Whenever the 
 gnats, whirling in aerial maze, came too near, 
 she raised the rowan branch and slowly waved 
 them back. Suddenly . . . her arm stiffened, 
 and she stood motionless, rigid, intent. It was the 
 Voice of the Sea, the dull, obscure, summoning 
 voice that whispered to the ancient Gods, and 
 called and calls to all Powers and Dominions 
 that have been and are ; the same that is in the 
 ears of Man as an echo ; and in the House of 
 the Soul as a rumour of a coming hour. 
 
 Motionless herself, her eyes travelled through 
 the long haze-blue vistas of the hills. The
 
 THE HILL-WIND IOJ 
 
 scythe-swift Shadow of a mighty pinion moved 
 from slope to slope. The Hill-Wind sighed. 
 Then, smiling under some new impulse of joy, 
 she leaped forward, but only indolently to throw 
 herself upon a flood of sunlight streaming by. 
 
 The wide reach of harebell-waters, beyond 
 where the heather broke down to the sea, shim- 
 mered suddenly into a dazzle of gold flame. A 
 few waves swung aloft their coronals of foam, 
 laughing joyously to the chant of their sweet 
 sea-tune. They had gained a sister : the Sea- 
 wind, a bride: and Ocean a breath, a suspi- 
 ration, an ended sigh.
 
 LOVE IN A MIST
 
 To a Midsummer Memory
 
 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 In a green hollow in the woodlands, Love, a 
 mere child, with sunny golden curls and large 
 blue eyes, stood whimpering. A round tear had 
 fallen on his breast and trickled slowly down his 
 white skin, till it lay like a dewdrop on his 
 thigh : another was in pursuit, but had reached 
 no further than a dimple in the chubby cheek, 
 into which it had heedlessly rolled and could not 
 get out again. Beside Love was a thicket of white 
 wild roses, so innumerable that they seemed like 
 a cloud of butterflies alit on a hedge for a moment 
 and about to take wing — so white that the little 
 wanderer looked as though he were made of 
 rose-stained ivory. Here was the cause of the 
 boy's whimpering. A thorn-point had slightly 
 scratched his right arm, barely tearing the skin 
 but puncturing it sufficiently to let a tiny drop
 
 112 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 of blood, like a baby rowan-berry, slowly well 
 forth. 
 
 Love looked long and earnestly at the wound. 
 Then he whimpered, but stopped to smile at a 
 squirrel who pretended to be examining the state 
 of its tail, but was really watching him. When 
 the little drop of blood would neither roll away 
 nor go back, Love grew angry, and began to 
 cry. 
 
 " Ah, I am so weak," he sighed ; " perhaps I 
 shall die ! Ah, wretched little soul that I am, 
 to lie here in this horrible thorny wood. No — 
 no — I will drag myself out into the sunshine, 
 and die there. Perhaps — p'raps — [sniffle) — 'aps 
 . — (sniffle) — a kind lark will" — (sniffle). 
 
 Sobbing bitterly, Love crept through a beech- 
 hedge, and so into the open sunlit meadow 
 beyond. He was so unhappy that he quite 
 forgot to knock off from a grey thistle a huge 
 snail, although its shell shone temptingly many- 
 hued ; and even a cricket that jumped on to his 
 foot and then off again hardly brought to his 
 face a wan smile. 
 
 But after sitting awhile by a heavy burdock, 
 and sobbing at gradually lengthening intervals, 
 he stopped abruptly. Out of a garth of red 
 clover and white campions he saw two round
 
 LOVE IN A MIST I I 3 
 
 black eyes staring at him with such unmitigated 
 astonishment that he could do nothing else but 
 stare back with equal rigidity and silence. 
 
 " Why, it is only a brown hare," exclaimed 
 Love below his breath. " How it smiles ! " — and 
 therewith he broke into so hearty a laugh that 
 the hare sprang round as if on a pivot, and went 
 leaping away through the meadow. Beyond the 
 puffed campions were a cluster of tall oxe-eye 
 daisies, and they moved so temptingly towards 
 him in the breeze that Love ran as it were to 
 meet them. 
 
 No sooner, however, was he in their midst 
 than he pluckt them one by one, and then ran 
 back with them towards the wood, in whose 
 cool shadow, he thought, it would be delightful 
 to weave of them a starry wreath. 
 
 But by the time the wreath was woven, Love 
 was both thirsty and aweary of being still. So, 
 having sipped the dew from a bed of green 
 mosses among the surface-roots of a vast oak, 
 he ran into a little wilderness of wild hyacinths, 
 and danced therein with maddest glee, while the 
 sunlight splashed upon him through the dappling 
 shadows of the oak boughs. 
 
 A fat bumble-bee and two white butterflies 
 joined him for a time, but at last the bee grew 
 
 1
 
 114 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 hot and breathless, and the butterflies were 
 frightened by his joyous laughter and the clap- 
 ping of his little hands. Scarce, however, was 
 he left alone once more than he descried a 
 young fawn among the fern. It took him but 
 a moment to snatch his wreath of ox-eye daisies, 
 and but another to spring to the side of the 
 startled fawn and place the wreath round its 
 neck. The great brown eyes looked fearfully 
 at Love, who, little rascal, pretended to be 
 caressing when he was really making ready for 
 a leap. In a second he was on the fawn's back 
 — but, ah ! poor Love, he had not calculated for 
 such a flight. Away sped the fawn, athwart 
 the glade, through the hollow, and out across 
 the meadow towards the sand-dune. Gradually 
 Love's hold became more and more insecure, 
 and at last off he came right into a mass 
 of yellow irises and a tadpole-haunted little 
 pool. 
 
 Love might have stopped to cry, or at least 
 to chase the tadpoles, but he happened to see a 
 sea-gull flying low beyond him across the dunes. 
 With a shout he pursued it, forgetful alike of the 
 fawn and his lost wreath. 
 
 But when he came to the break in the dunes 
 he could not see the ocean because of the haze
 
 LOVE IN A MIST 115 
 
 that lay upon it, and in which the sea-gull was 
 soon lost to sight. But at least the sands were 
 there. For a time he wandered disconsolately 
 along the shore. Then, when he saw the tide 
 slowly advancing, he frowned. " Ha ! ha !" he 
 laughed, " I shall build a castle of sand, and 
 then the sea will not know what to do, and the 
 white gull will come back again." 
 
 But having built his sand-castle, Love was 
 so weary that he curled himself up behind the 
 shallow barrier, and, having wearily but lovingly 
 placed beside him three pink half-shells, a pearly 
 willie-winkie, a piece of wave-worn chalk, and a 
 hermit-crab (which soon crawled away), he was 
 speedily asleep. 
 
 Before long the ripple of the water against the 
 very frontier of his small domain aroused the 
 brine-bred things that live by the sea-marge. A 
 few cockles gaped thirstily, and one or two 
 whistle-fish sent their jets of water up into the 
 air and then protruded their shelly shouts as if 
 to scan the tardy advance of the tide. The 
 sand-lice bestirred themselves, creeping, leaping, 
 confusedly eager not to be overtaken by that rapid 
 ooze which would quicksand them in a moment. 
 
 Then a piece of dulse was washed right on to 
 the castle-wall. On the salt-smelling wrack was 
 
 1 — 2
 
 I 1 6 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 a crab, and this startled voyager saw dry land 
 and mayhap new food to sample in the white 
 foot of Love that lay temptingly near. Just 
 then a flying shrimp, a mad aeronaut, a reck- 
 less enthusiast among its kind, took the fortress 
 at a leap and alighted on Love's white and 
 crinkled belly. The boy's body instinctively 
 shivered. Still, he might not have awaked, had 
 not the crab at that moment joyously gripped, 
 as succulent prey, his little toe, curled as it was 
 like a small and dainty mollusc. 
 
 Love sat up, and with indignant eyes remon- 
 strated with the crab, who had at once given 
 way and retreated with haphazard assiduity to 
 the shelter of a convenient pebble partially em- 
 bedded in the sand. 
 
 As for the shrimp, it had come and gone like 
 the very ghost of a tickle, like the dream-fly of 
 sleepland. 
 
 But suddenly Love heard a voice, a low 
 whisper, coming he knew not whence, and yet 
 so strangely familiar. Was it borne upon the 
 white lips of the tide, or did it come from the 
 curving billow that swept shoreward, or from 
 the deep beyond ? Who can guess what the 
 voice said, since Love himself knew not the 
 sweet strange word, but was comforted : know-
 
 LOVE IN A MIST I I 7 
 
 ing only that he was to return to the wood 
 again. Fragments he caught, though little com- 
 prehensible : "My child, my little wandering 
 Love, who art born daily, and art ever young," 
 and then the words of which he knew nothing, 
 or but vaguely apprehended. 
 
 Yet ever petulant, Love would rather have 
 stayed by the sea, even to the undoing of his 
 castle-walls, already toppling with the upward 
 reaching damp of the stealthy underooze, had 
 he not descried a white wild-goat standing on 
 the dune and looking at him with mild eyes like 
 sunlit sardonyx. With a glad cry he ran towards 
 the goat, who made no play of caprice but seemed 
 to invite, for all the strangeness of the essay, 
 this young rider with the child's smile and the 
 emperor's eyes. 
 
 The yellow-hammers and ousels, the whin- 
 chats and sea-larks sent abroad long thrilling 
 notes in their excitement, as the white goat, 
 with Love laughingly astride, raced across the 
 dunes and over the meadows towards the wood. 
 But as the too-impulsive steed took a fallen oak 
 at a bound, its feet caught in the loose bark, and 
 poor Love was shot forward into a hollow of 
 green moss. Alas, in the comet-like passage 
 thither, a nettle slightly stung the sole of one
 
 Il8 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 foot ; so that the moment he had recovered 
 from his somersault he snatched a broken oak- 
 branch, and turned to chastise the too heedless 
 goat. But, to his astonishment, no goat was to 
 be seen. It had disappeared as though it were 
 a blossom blown by the wind. 
 
 Rubbing his eyes, Love looked again and 
 again. No goat ; no sound, even, save the 
 ruffling of the low wind among the lofty domes 
 of the forest, the tap-tapping of a woodpecker, 
 the shrill cry of a jay and indiscriminate warbling 
 undertone of a myriad birds, with, below all, the 
 chirp of the grasshopper and the drone of the 
 small wood-wasp and the foraging bee. 
 
 Beyond the last copse the sun was slowly 
 moving in a whirl of golden fire. 
 
 Hark ! what was that ? Love started, and 
 then slipped cautiously from tree to tree, finding 
 his way into the woodland like a gliding sunray. 
 He heard voices, and a snatch of a song : — 
 
 " The wild bird called to me ' Follow ! ' 
 The nightingale whispered ' Stay ! ' 
 When lost in the hawthorn-hollow 
 We" 
 
 The next moment he descried a lovely girl lying 
 on the moss below an oak, with her face towards 
 the setting sun, whose warm flood soaked through
 
 LOVE IN A MIST I 1 9 
 
 the wide green flame of the irradiated leaves. A 
 little way beyond her was a young man, no other 
 than the singer, standing by an easel, and putting 
 the last touches to the canvas upon which he was 
 at work. 
 
 Love was curious. He had never seen a 
 picture, and, in facl, he thought the man was 
 probably spreading out something to eat. He, 
 child though he was, was so fearless, that no one 
 could have daunted him, and so natively royal, 
 that no idea even of his being gainsaid troubled 
 his brain. 
 
 With great interest he stole alongside the 
 painter. He looked at the canvas dubiously ; 
 sniffed it ; and then turned away with a gesture 
 of disapproval. He liked the look of the pig- 
 ments on a palette that lay on the ground, and 
 thought that the man was perhaps no other than 
 he who painted the kingcups and violets and the 
 bells of the hyacinths. But the smell made him 
 sick, and so he stole towards the girl to see what 
 she was doing. 
 
 It vaguely puzzled him that neither the man 
 nor the girl seemed to be aware of his presence ; 
 yet, as Love never troubled to think, the bewil- 
 derment was but a shadow of a passing cloud. 
 The girl was beautiful. He loved better to look
 
 120 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 at her than at any other flower of the forest. 
 Even the blue cornflower, even the hedge-speed- 
 well, had not so exquisite a blue as the dream- 
 wrought eyes into whose unconscious depths he 
 looked long, and saw at last his own image, clear 
 as in deep water. " I wish she would sing," said 
 Love to himself; ,J that man yonder is no better 
 than a huge bumble-bee." With a mischievous 
 glance he pluckt a tall wind-flower, and gently 
 tickled her with it. 
 
 A faint smile, a delicate wave of colour, came 
 into her face. "Ah, Love ! Love /" she whispered 
 below her breath. 
 
 How sweet the words were ! With a happy 
 sigh Love cuddled up close to the beautiful girl, 
 and, tired and drowsy, would soon have fallen 
 asleep, had not the heaving of her bosom dis- 
 turbed him. 
 
 " Ah, what a tiresome world it is," exclaimed 
 Love fretfully, as he crawled indolently away, 
 and then rested again among some blue flowers, 
 There he sat for some time, sulkily tying a peri- 
 winkle round each toe. Suddenly, with a cry of 
 joy, he descried among the flowers his lost bow 
 and sheaf of arrows. With a merry laugh he 
 reached for them, and in mere wantonness began 
 to fray the petals with an arrow, and to tangle
 
 LOVE IN A MIST 12 1 
 
 them into an intricate net of blue blossom and 
 green fibre. 
 
 But in the midst of his glee came retribution. 
 He heard a rustling sound, a quick exclamation, 
 and the next moment an easel fell right atop of 
 him, and, but for his soft, mossy carpet, might 
 have flattened him, for all his white plumpness. 
 True, the easel was picked up again immediately, 
 but Love felt the insult as well as the blow. 
 With a yell of anger, that very nearly startled 
 a neighbouring caterpillar, he fitted an arrow to 
 his bow, and shot it straight at the clumsy 
 owner of the easel. " Aha," he thought, " I 
 have paid you back, you see," for he saw the 
 young man stop, grow pale, hesitate, and then 
 suddenly fall on his knees. "Ah! he is wounded 
 to death," and Love's tender heart got the better 
 of his resentment, and he would fain have re- 
 called that deadly arrow. But to his astonish- 
 ment the youth seemed more eager to seize and 
 kiss the girl's hand than to save his life, if that 
 were still possible ! 
 
 As for the girl, the sunset was upon her face 
 as a flame. She tried to rise, and in doing so 
 trampled upon one of Love's toes. Poor little 
 Love danced about furiously on one foot, hold- 
 ing his wounded toe with one hand ; but alas !
 
 122 LOVE IN A MIST 
 
 again his hasty anger overcame him, and, before 
 he realised what he had done, he shot another 
 arrow, this time straight at the heart of the 
 lovely girl. 
 
 Alas, how it weakened her at once ! In the 
 agony of death, no doubt, she fell forward into 
 the man's arms and laid her head upon his 
 breast. 
 
 But speedily Love saw that they were not 
 dead or even dying, but merely kissing and 
 fondling each other, and this too in the most 
 insensate fashion. 
 
 "Oh, how funny! how funny!" laughed 
 Love, and rolled about in an ecstasy among the 
 
 blue flowers, making the tangle worse than ever. 
 
 * * * # # 
 
 (Twilight.) 
 
 She. Darling — darling — let me go now — let 
 me go. It will soon be dark. 
 
 He. Sweetheart, wait ! 
 
 She. Hush! What is that? 
 (A low tiny snore comes from amidst the blue flowers.) 
 
 He. Oh, it is only a beetle rubbing its shards, 
 or a mole burrowing through the grass. 
 
 She. Ah, look ; we are trampling under foot 
 such beautiful flowers. These must be our 
 flowers, dear, must they not ? What are they ?
 
 LOVE IN A MIST 1 23 
 
 He. I don't know — ah, yes, to be sure — they 
 must be the flower called " Love in a Mist." 
 
 She [dreamily). I wonder if we could see 
 Love himself if we searched below all this blue 
 tangle ? 
 
 . . . She leans down, and peers through 
 the blue veil of the flowers. Love wakes with 
 the fragrance of her warm breath playing upon 
 his cheek, but does not stir, for he is remorseful 
 at having shot an arrow at so lovely a thing. 
 With loving caressing touch he gently lays a 
 dew-drop into each blue flower of her eyes. . . . 
 
 She (whisperingly as she rises). How beautiful, 
 how wonderful it all is ! 
 
 He. Ah, darling, tears in those beautiful eyes ! 
 Come, let me kiss them away. 
 
 Love (below his breath). Greedy wretch — I 
 gave them to her ! Ah, she shall have many 
 more, and you, mayhap, none ! 
 
 Hand in hand, the lovers go away, and, well 
 content, Love turns over on his side and is soon 
 sound asleep. The moon rises, full and golden 
 yellow. From a beech-covert a nightingale 
 sings with intermittent snatches of joy. Above 
 the blue flowers two white night-moths flicker 
 in a slow fantastic wayward dance. A glow- 
 worm, hanging on a lock of Love's curly hair,
 
 124 L VE IN A MIST 
 
 shines as though it were the child of a moon- 
 beam and a flower. 
 
 But at last the glowworm, crawling from its 
 high place and adown the white sweetness of 
 Love's face, tickled his small nose, and caused 
 him to sit up, startled, and wide awake. 
 " What — who ? " muttered Love confusedly. 
 The Nightjar. 
 Quir-rr-rr-o / . . . Quir-rr-rr-o ! 
 The Nightingale. 
 Kew-u-ee, kwee / Kwee-kwee-tchug ! tchug / tchug > 
 kwee-kwilloh ! 
 
 A Restless Magpie {mockingly). 
 Kwilloh . . . kwollow, ohee kwollow-kwan ! 
 
 Echo. 
 Follow . . . oh, follow them / 
 
 Further Echo. 
 Follow/ . . . Fol . . . low! 
 
 Love (rising). 
 I come, I come ! who calls ? 
 
 Distant Echo {faintly). 
 Fol . . . low.
 
 Printed by R.ffolkard &> Son, 
 32, Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury, London, W.C.
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Life of Heine 
 
 Life of Browning 
 
 The Severn Alemoirs 
 
 Romantic Ballads and Poems of Phantasy [2nd Edition) 
 
 Sospiri di Roma 
 
 Children of Tomorrow 
 
 A Fellmv and His Wife {Co- Author) 
 
 The Gypsy Christ: and Other Tales {Autumn, 1895: 
 
 Stone & Kimball) 
 Vistas. {2nd Edition) 
 
 Vistas. {Augmented American Edition. Ln the " Green 
 Tree Library.'''' In 3rd Edition) 
 
 FORTHCOMING 
 
 Wives in Exile. {A Comedy in Romance) 
 The Idolater : and Other Tales 
 The Ideals of Art
 
 List of Books 
 
 in 
 
 Belles Lettres 
 
 ALL THE BOOKS IN THIS CATALOGUE ARE 
 PUBLISHED AT NET PRICES 
 
 London: Elkin Mathews, Vigo Street, W. 
 i8gs-g6 
 
 Telegraphic Address — 
 
 ' Elegantia, London.'
 
 Vigo Viatica 
 Lector ! eme^ lege^ iff gauaebis 
 
 List of Books 
 
 IN 
 
 BELLES LETTRES 
 
 (Including some Transfers) 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Elkin Mathews 
 
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 Lionel Johnson. W. B. Yeats.
 
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 Travels in a Tree-Top. Sm. 8vo. $s. net. 
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 BLACKMORE (R. D.) 
 
 Fringilla : or. Some Tales in Verse. By the Author 
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 it is very delightful. A whimsical originality, an imaginative wealth of detail, a 
 pleasant sense of humour are among Mr. Blackmore's qualities as a poet." — Speaker. 
 
 " Mr. Blackmore's rerse is cultured and careful ; it is full of knowledge ; it has 
 every quality which commands our respect ; it has an old-world charm of gentlcnes3 
 and peace.' — Mr. W. L. COURTNEY, in the Daily Telegraph. 
 
 "The charming and accomplished drawings of Mr. Fairfax-Muckley, so finely 
 designed, so admirably decorative." — Academy. 
 
 BOfVCHER (HAVERING). 
 
 The C Major of Life : A Novel. Cr. Svo. 3*. 6d. net. 
 
 [Isham Facsimile Reprint.] 
 
 BRETON (NICHOLAS). 
 
 No Whippinge, nor Trippinge, but a kinde 
 friendly Snippinge. London, 1601. A Facsimile 
 Reprint, with the original Borders to every page, with 
 a Bibliographical Note by Charles Edmonds. 200 
 copies, printed on hand-made paper at the CHISWICK 
 Press. i2mo. 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 Also 50 copies Large Paper. 55. net. 
 
 Facsimile reprint from the semi-unique copy discovered in the autumn of 1867 by 
 Mr. Charles Edmonds in a disused lumber room at Lamport Hall. Northams (Sir 
 Charles E Isham's), and purchased lately by the British Museum authorities. When 
 Dr. A. B. firosart collected Breton's Works a few years ago for his " Chertsey 
 Worthies Library," he was forced to conte9s that certain of Breton's most coveted 
 books were missing and absolutely unavailable. The serai-unique example under 
 notice was one of these. 
 
 BRIDGES (ROBERT). 
 
 A New Volume of Poems. [In preparation. 
 
 BYRON (MAT). 
 
 A Little Book of Lyrics. [In preparation. 
 
 CARMAN (BLISS) & RICHARD HOVEY. 
 
 Songs from Vagabondia. With Decorations by Tom 
 
 B. Meteyard. P'cap. Svo. 55. net. 
 Boston : Cope land &* Day. 
 
 " The Authors of the small joint volume called ' Songs from Vagabondia,' have 
 an unmistakable right to the name of poet. These little snatches have the spirit of a 
 gip>y Omar Khayyami They have always caieless verve, and often caielcss felicity j 
 they are m.isculiue and rough, as roving songs should be. . . Here, certainly, 
 
 i» the peel's soul. . . . You, have the v/hulc spirit of the book in, such an unfor-
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 
 
 CARMAN (BLISS) &- RICHARD HOVET— continued. 
 
 getable little lyric as ' In the House of Idiedaily.' . . We refer the reader to the 
 delightful little volume itself, which comes as a welcome interlude amidst the highly 
 wrought introspective poetry of the day. '—Francis Thompson, in Merry England. 
 
 " Bliss Carman is the author of a delightful volume of verse, ' Low Tide on 
 Grand Pre,' and Richard Hovey is the foiemost of the living poets of America, with 
 the exception, peihaps, of Bret Harte and Joaquim Miller, whose names are more 
 familiar. He sounds a deeper note than either of these, and deals with loftier 
 themes.'' — Dublin Express. 
 
 " Both possess the power of investing actualities with fancy, and leaving them 
 none the less actual ; of setting the march music of the vagabond's feet to words; of 
 being comrades with nature, yet without presumption. And they have that charm, 
 rare in writers of verse, of drawing the reader into the fellowship of their own zest 
 and contentment." — Athenaum. 
 
 CHAPMAN (ELIZABETH RACHEL). 
 
 A Little Child's Wreath : A Sonnet Sequence. With 
 title page and cover designed by Selwyn Image. 
 Second Edition. Sq. i6rao., green buckram. 2s.6d.mt. 
 
 New York : Dodd, Mead &■ Company. 
 
 " Contains many tender and pathetic passages, and some really exquisite and 
 subtle touches of childhood nature. . . . The average excellence of the sonnets 
 is undoubted. "Spectator. 
 
 " In these forty pages of poetry ... we have a contribution inspired by 
 grief for the loss of a child of seven, which is not unworthy to take its place even 
 beside ' In Memoriam.' . . . Miss Chapman has ventured upon sacred ground, 
 but she has come otf safely, with the inspiration of a divine sympathy in lur soul, and 
 with lips touched with the live coal from the altar on which glow3 the flame of 
 immortal love " — W. T. STEAD, in The Review of Reviews. 
 
 ** Full of a very solemn and beautiful but never exaggerated sentiment."— 
 LOGROLLER, in Star. 
 
 "While they are brimming with tenderness and tears, they are marked with the 
 skilled workmanship of the real poet." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 " Evidently describes very real and intense sorrow. Its strains of tender sym- 
 pathy will appeal specially to those whose hearts have been wrung by the loss ot a 
 young child, and the verses are touching in their simplicity " — Morning- Pott. 
 
 " Re-assurcs us on its fust page by its sanity and its simple tenderness." — Bookman. 
 
 COLERIDGE (HON. STEPHEN). 
 
 The Sanctity of Confession : A Romance. 2nd edi- 
 tion. Printed by Clowes & Son. 250 copies. Cr. 8vo. 
 3j. net [ Very few remain. 
 
 "Mr. Stephen Coleridge's sixteenth-century romance is well and pleasantly 
 written. The style is throughout in keeping with the story; and we should imagine 
 that the historical probabilities are well observed." — Pall Mall Gaxette. 
 
 Mr. GLADSTONE writes;— "I have read the singularly well told story. . . . 
 It opens up questions both deep and dark ; it cannot be right to accept in religion 
 or anything else a secret which destroys the lifa of an innocent fellow creattiie."
 
 The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 CORBIN (JOHN). 
 
 The Elizabethan Hamlet: A Study of the Sources, 
 and of Shakspere's Environment, to show that the Mad 
 Scenes had a Comic Aspect now Ignored. With a 
 Prefatory Note by F. York Powell, Professor of 
 Modern History at the University of Oxford. Small 
 4to. 35 6d. net. 
 New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 ..." When we add that so competent a judge as Professor York Powell 
 expresses his belief in a Prelatory Note that Mr. Corbin has 'got hold of a truth that 
 has not been clearly, if at all, expressed in our Elizabethan studies— to wit, that the 
 16th century audience's point of view, and, of necessity, the playwright's treatment 
 of his subject, were very different from ours of to-day in many matters of mark' — and 
 express our own concurrence in this, we have said enough to recommend Mr. Corbin's 
 little book to the attention of all Shakespearian students." — Times. 
 
 CROSSING (WILLIAM). 
 
 The Ancient Crosses of Dartmoor ; with a Descrip- 
 tion of their Surroundings. With 11 plates. 8vo. cloth. 
 45. 6d. net. [ Very few remain. 
 
 DAVIES (R. R.). 
 
 Some Account of the Old Church at Chelsea and 
 of its Monuments. [In preparation. 
 
 DE GRUCHY {AUGUSTA). 
 
 Under the Hawthorn, and Other Verses. With 
 Frontispiece by Walter Crane. Printed at the 
 Rugby Press. 300 copies. Cr. 8vo. $s. net. 
 Also 30 copies on Japanese vellum. 155. net. 
 "Melodious in metre, graceful in fancy, and not without spontaneity of inspira- 
 tion."— Times. 
 
 " Very tender and melodious is much of Mrs. De Gruchy's verse. Rare imaginative 
 power marks the dramatic monologue ' In the Prison Van.'" — Speaker. 
 
 " Distinguished bv the attractive qualities of grace and refinement, and a purity 
 of style that is as refreshing as a limpid stream in the heat of a summer's noon. . . . 
 The charm of these poems lies in their naturalness, which is indeed an admirable 
 quality in song.'' — Saturday Review. 
 
 DIVERSI COLORES SERIES. 
 See Horne. 
 
 DOIVSON (ERNEST). 
 
 Dilemmas : Stories and Studies in Sentiment. (A Case of 
 Conscience.— The Diary of a Successful Man. — An 
 Orchestral Violin.— The Statute of Limitations.— 
 Souvenirs of an Egoist). Crown 8vo. $s. 6d. net. 
 
 New York: Frederick A, Stokes Company.
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 
 
 DOIVSON (ERNEST)— continued. 
 
 " Unquestionably they are good stories, with a real human interest in them." — 
 St. James's Gaxette. 
 
 " ' A Case of Conscience ' ... an exceedingly good story. At first sight 
 it might appear unfinished, as one of the problems presented is left unsolved ; but one 
 soon feels that anything more would have spoilt the act with which the double tragedy 
 of the two men's lives is flashed before the reader in a few pages." — Jlthenaum. 
 
 "These stories can be read with pure enjoyment, for along with subtlety of 
 thought and grace of diction there is true refinement." — Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 Poems (Diversi Co/ores Series). With a title design by 
 
 H. P. Horne. Printed at the Chiswick Press, on 
 
 hand-made paper. i6mo. $s. net. [Shortly. 
 
 " Mr Dowson's contributions to the two series of the Rhymer's Book were 
 
 subtle and exquisite poems. He has a touch of Elizabethan distinction. . . . 
 
 Mr. Dowson's stories are very remarkable in quality." — Boston Literary IVorli. 
 
 FIELD (MICHAEL). 
 
 Sight and Song (Poems on Pictures). Printed by 
 Constables. 400 copies. i2mo. $s. net. 
 
 [ Very feiv remain. 
 
 Stephania : a Trialogue in Three Acts. Frontis- 
 piece, colophon, and ornament for binding designed 
 by Selwyn Image. Printed by Folkard & Son. 
 250 copies (200 for sale). Pott 4to. 65. net. 
 
 [ Very few remain. 
 
 "We have true drama in 'Stephania.' .... Stephania, Otho, and 
 
 Sylvester II., the three persons of the play, are more than mere names 
 
 Besides great effort, commendable effort, there is real greatness in this play; and the 
 blank verse is often sinewy and strong with thought and passion."— Speaker. 
 
 "'Stephania' is striking in design and powerful in execution. It is a highly 
 dramatic 'trialogue' between the Emperor Otho III., his tutor Gerbert, and Stephania, 
 the widow of the murdered Roman Consul, Crescentius. The poem contains much 
 fine work, and is picturesque and of poetical accent. . . ." — Westminster Reziew. 
 
 A Question of Memory : A Play in Four Acts- 
 100 copies only. 8vo. 51. net. [Very few remain- 
 
 Attila, My Attila ! A Drama in Four Acts. 
 
 With a Facsimile of Two Medals. (Uniform with 
 
 Stephania). Pott 4to. 55. net. 
 
 It deals with the strange and desperate adventures of Honoria, daughter of the 
 
 famous Empress Galla Placidia. This young princt-ss may reasonably be regarded as 
 
 the New Woman of the filth century, and it is from this point of view that Michael 
 
 Field has presented her audacities and their punishment. The title page reproduces 
 
 a medal which, in Gibbon's words, " exhibits the pleasing countenance of Hoaoria," 
 
 together with one that represents her mother.
 
 8 The Publications of Eflcin Mathews 
 
 GALTON (ARTHUR). 
 
 Essays upon Matthew Arnold (Diversi Colores Series), 
 Printed at the Chiswick Press on hand-made paper. 
 Cr. 8vo. $s. net. \_In preparation. 
 
 GASKIN (ARTHUR). 
 
 Good King Wenceslas. A Carol written by Dr. Neale 
 and Pictured by Arthur J. Gaskin ; with an Intro- 
 duction by William Morris. 4to. 3^. 6d. net. 
 Transferred to the present Publisher. 
 
 "Mr. Arthur J. Gaskin has more than redeemed the prom^e of his illustrations' 
 to Hans Christian Andersen's tales by his edition of the lace Dr. Neale's carol of 
 1 Good King Wenceslas.' . . . The pictures, pictorial borders, and initial letters 
 are remarkable both for the vigour of the drawing and the sense of the decorative 
 style which they exhibit. Mr. William Morris has shown his interest in the artist's 
 works by contributing a prefatory note." — Daily News. 
 
 GASKIN (MRS. ARTHUR). 
 
 An A. B.C. Book. Rhymed and Pictured by Mrs. 
 Arthur Gaskin. 60 designs. Feap. 8vo. 3* 6d.net. 
 Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 
 
 HAKE {DR. T. GORDON, "The Parable Poet.") 
 
 Madeline, and other Pof.ms. Crown 8vo. $s. net. 
 Transferred to the present Publisher, 
 
 "The ministry of the anjel Daphne to her erring human sister is frequently 
 related in strains of pure and elevated tenderness. Nor does the poet who can show 
 so much delicacy fail in strength. The description of Madeline as she passes in 
 trance to her vengeance is full of vivid pictures and charged with tragic feeling 
 The individuality of the writer lies in his deep sympathy with w.'iatever affects the 
 being and condition of man. . . . Taken as a whole, the book has high and 
 unusual claims.'' — Athincrum. 
 
 ''I havebeen reading 'Madeline' again. For sheer originality, both of conception 
 and of treatment, I consider that it stands alone." — Mr. Theodore Watts. 
 
 Parables and Tales. (Mother and Child. — The Crip- 
 ple.— The Blind Boy.— Old Morality. —Old Souls.— 
 The Lily of the Valley. — The Deadly Nightshade. — 
 The Poet). With a Biographical Sketch by Theodore 
 Watts. 9 illustrations by Arthur Hughes. New 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. net. 
 
 "The qualities of Dr. Gordon Hake's work were from the first fully admitted 
 and warmly praised by one of the greatest of contemporary poets, who was also a 
 critic of exceptional acuteness — Rossetti Indeed, the only two review articles which 
 Rossetti ever wrote were written on two of Dr. Hake's books: ' Madeline,' which he 
 reviewed in the Academy in 1871, and ' ("arables and Tales,' which he reviewed in 
 the Fortnightly in 1875. Many eminent critics have expressed a decided preference 
 for ' Parublcs and Talcs * to Dr. Hake's other works, and it had the advantage of being
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 
 
 HAKE (DR. T. GORDON)— continued. 
 
 enriched with the admirable illustrations of Arthur Hughes."— Saturday Review, 
 January, 1895. 
 
 " The piece called ' Old Souls ' is probably secure of a distinct place in the liter- 
 atureofour day, and we believe the same may be predicted of other poems in the 
 little collection just issued. . . . Should Dr. Hake's more restricted, but lovely 
 and sincere contributions to the poetry of real life not find the immediate response 
 they deserve, he may at least remember that others also have failed to meet at once 
 with lull justice and recognition But we will hope for good encouragement to his 
 present and future work ; and can at least ensure the lover of poetry that in these 
 simple pages he shall find not seldom a humanity limpid and pellucid — the well-spring 
 of a true heart, with which his tears must mingle as with their own element. 
 
 " Dr. Hake has been fortunate in the beautiful drawings which Mr. Arthur 
 Hughes has contributed to his little volume. No poet could have a more congenial 
 yoke-fellow than this gifted and imaginative artist."— D. G. Rossetti, in the 
 Fortnightly. 1875. 
 
 HEMINGWAY (PERCY). 
 
 Out of Egypt : Stories from the Threshold of the East. 
 Cover design by Gleeson White. Crown 8vo. 
 35. 6d. net. 
 
 " This is a strong book.'' — Academy. 
 
 "This is a remarkable book. Egyptian life has seldom been portrayed from the 
 inside. . . . The author's knowledge of Arabic, his sympathy with the religion 
 of Islam, above all his enure freedom from Western prejudice, have enabled him to 
 learn more of what modern Egypt really is than the average Englishman could 
 possibly acquire in a lifetime at Cairo or Port Said.'' — African Review. 
 
 "A lively and picturesque style. . . undoubted talent." — Manchester Guardian. 
 
 " But seldom that the first production o. an author is so mature and so finished in 
 style as this. . . . The sketches are veritable spoils of the Egyptians— gems of 
 sproe in a setting of clear air, sharp outlines, and wondrous skies. — Morning Leader. 
 
 " This book places its author amongst those writers from whom lasting work of 
 high aim is to be expected.'' — The Star. 
 
 "The tale . . . is treated with daring directness. . . An impressive and 
 pathetic close to a story told throughout with arresting strength and simplicity " — 
 Daily News. 
 
 "Genuine power and pathos." — Pali Mall Gaxette. 
 
 The Happy Wanderer (Poems). With title design by 
 Charles I. ffoulkes. Printed at the Chiswick Press, on 
 hand-made paper. Sq. i6mo. 55. net. [In the press, 
 
 HICKEY (EMILY H). 
 
 A Volume of Poems. [In preparation. 
 
 Verse Tales, Lyrics and Translations. Printed at 
 
 the Arnold Press. 300 copies. Imp. i6mo. 5s. net. 
 
 [ Very few remain. 
 'Miss Hickey's 'Verse Tales, Lyrics, and Translations' almost invariably 
 reach a high level of finish and completeness. The book is a string of little rounded 
 pearls. — Athtnaum.
 
 io The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 HINKSON {HENRY A.). 
 
 Dublin Verses. By Members of Trinity College. 
 Selected and Edited by II. A. Hinkson, late Scholar 
 of Trinity College, Dublin. Pott 4to. 55. net. 
 
 Dublin : Hodges, Figgis &> Co. , Limited. 
 
 Includes contributions by the following : — Aubrey de Vere, 
 Sir Stephen de Vere, Oscar Wilde, J. K. Ingram, A. P. Graves, 
 J. Todhunter, W. E. H. Lecky, T. W. Rolleston, Edward 
 Dowden, G. A. Greene, Savage-Armstrong, Douglas Hyde, 
 R. Y. Tyrrell, G. N. Plunkett, W. Macneile Dixon, William 
 Wilkins, George Wilkins, and Edwin Hamilton. 
 
 " A pleasant volume of contemporary Irish Verse. . . A judicious selection." 
 — Times. 
 
 " Wherever there is a group of Irish readers in near or far-off lands, these 
 1 Dublin Verses' will be sure to command attention and applause." — Glasgow Herald. 
 
 HINKSON (KATHARINE). 
 
 Sloes on the Blackthorn : a Volume of Irish 
 Stories. Crown 8vo., 35. 6d. net. [In preparation. 
 
 " HOBBY HORSE (THE)." 
 
 An Illustrated Art Miscellany. Edited by Herbert 
 P. Horne. The Fourth Number of the New Series 
 will shortly appear, after which Mr. Mathews will 
 publish all the numbers in a volume, price £1. is. net. 
 
 Boston : Copeland &* Day. 
 
 HORNE (HERBERT P.) 
 
 Diversi Colores : Poems. V'gnette, &c , designed by 
 the Author. Printed at the ChjSWICK Press. 250 
 copies. l6mo. $s. net. 
 Transferred by the Author to the present Publisher. 
 
 " In these few poems Mr. Horne has set betore a tasteless age, and an extravagant 
 age, examples of poetry which, without fear or hesitation, we consider to be of true 
 and pure beauty." — Anti-J 'accbin . 
 
 " With all his fondness for sixteenth century styles and themes, Mr. Horne is yet 
 sufficiently individual in his thought and manner. Much of his sei. liment is quite 
 latter-day in tone and rendering ; he is a child ol his time." — Gkbe. 
 
 "Mr. Home's woilc is almost always caiefully felicitous and may be compared 
 with beautiful filagree work in verse. He is tully, pe. haps too fully, c nscious of the 
 value of re train t, and is certainly in need of no more culture in tue handling of verse 
 — of such verse as alone he cares to work in. He has already (he mtnts of a finished 
 artist— or, at all events, of an artist who is capable of the utmost finish.'' — fall 
 Mall Gaxttte.
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. n 
 
 HORNE {HERBERT P.) -continued. 
 
 The Series of Books begun in '"Diversi Colores" by 
 Mr. Herbert P. Horne, will continue to be pub- 
 lished by Mr. Elkin Mathews. 
 The intention of the series is to give, in a collected and 
 sometimes revised form, Poems and Essays by various 
 writers, whose names have hitherto been chiefly asso- 
 ciated with the Hobby Horse. The series will be edited 
 by Mr. Herbert I*. Home, and will contain : 
 No. II. Poems and Carols. By Selwyn Image. 
 
 [Just published. 
 No. III. Essays upon Matthew Arnold. By Ar- 
 thur GALTON. [Immediately. 
 No. IV. Poems. By Ernest Dowson. [Immediately. 
 No. V. The Letters and Papers of Adam Le- 
 GENDRE. [In preparation. 
 _ Each volume will contain a new title-page and ornaments 
 designed by the Editor ; and the volumes of verse will be 
 uniform with "Diversi Colores." 
 
 HORTON (ALICE). 
 
 Poems. [Shortly. 
 
 HUEFFER [OLIVER F. MADOX). 
 
 Sonnets and Poems. With a frontispiece. [Shortly. 
 
 HUGHES (ARTHUR). 
 See Hake. 
 
 HUNT (LEIGH). 
 
 A Volume of Essays now collected for the first time. 
 
 Edited with a critical Introduction by R. W. M. 
 
 Johnson. [In the press. 
 
 IMAGE (SELWYN). 
 
 Poems and Carols. (Diversi Colores Series. — New 
 Volume). Title design by H. P. Horne. Printed 
 on hand-made paper at the Chiswtck Prf.ss. i6mo. 
 5-f. net. [JuU ready. 
 
 "Among the artists who have turned poets will shortly have to be reckoned Mr. 
 Selwyn Image. A volume of pogms from his pen will be published by Mi. Elkin 
 Mathews before long. Those who are acquainted with Mr. Selwyn Image's work 
 will expect to find a leal and deep poetic charm in this book." — Daily Chnnidt.
 
 12 The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 IMAGE {SELWYN)— continued. 
 
 " No one else could have done it (i.e., written ' Poems and Carols ') in just this 
 way, and the artist himself could have done it in no other way.'' " A remarkable 
 impress of personality, and ihis personality of singular rarity and interest. Every 
 piece is perfectly composed; the ' mental cartooning.' to use Rossetti's phrase, has 
 been adequately done . . . an air of grave and homely order . . . a union of 
 quaint and suotly simple homeliness, with a somewhat abstract severity. ... It 
 is a new thing, the revelation of a new poet. . . . Here is a book which may be 
 trusted to outlive most contemporary literature." — Saturday Review. 
 
 " An intensely personal expression of a personality of singular charm, gravity, 
 ftncifulness, and interest ; work which is alone among contemporary verse alike in 
 regard to substance and to form . . . comes with more true novelty than any 
 book of verse published in England for some years." — Athenaum. 
 
 " Some men seem to avoid fame as sed ulously as the majority seek it. Mr. Selwyn 
 Image is one of these. He has achieved a charming fame by his very shyness and 
 mystery. His very name has a look or having been designed by the Century Guild, 
 and it was certainly first published in The Century Guild Hobby Horse." — The Realm. 
 
 "In the tiny little volume of verse, 'Poems and Carols,' by Selwyn Image, 
 we discern a note of spontaneous inspiration, a delicate and gracelul fancy, and 
 considerable, but unequal, skill of versification. The Carols are skilful reproductions 
 of that rather archaic form of composition, devotional in tone and felicitous in 
 sentiment. Love and nature are the principal themes of the Poems. It is difficult 
 not to be hackneyed in the treatment of such themes, but Mr. Image successfully 
 overcomes the difficulty." — The Times. 
 
 " The Catholic movement in literature, a strong reality to-day in England as in 
 France, if working within narrow limits, has its newest interpretation in Mr. Selwyn 
 Image's ' Poems and Carols.' Of course the book is charming to look at and to 
 handle, since it is his. The Chiswick Press and Mr. Mathews have helped him to 
 realize his design." — The Sketch. 
 
 ISHAM FACSIMILE REPRINTS; Nos. III. and IK 
 See Breton and Southwell. 
 %* New Elizabethan Literature at the British Museum, see 
 The Times, 31 August, 1894, also Notes and Queries, Sept., 1894. 
 
 [By the Author of The Art of Thomas Hardy\. 
 JOHNSON (LIONEL). 
 
 Poems. With a title design and colophon by H. P. Horne. 
 Printed at the Chiswick Press, on hand-made paper. 
 Sq. post 8vo. $s. net. 
 Also, 25 special copies at 155. net. 
 Boston : Copeland and Day. 
 
 " Full of delicate fancy, and display much lyrical grace and felicity." — Times. 
 "An air of solidity, combined with something also of severity, is the first 
 impression one receives from these pages. . . . The poems are more massive 
 than most lyrics are; they aim at dignity and attain it This is, we believe, the first 
 book of verse that Mr. Johnson has published; and we would say, on a first reading, 
 that for a first book it was remarkably mature. And so it is, in its accomplishment, 
 its reserve of strength, its unfaltering style. . . . Whatever form his writing 
 takes, it will be the expression of a rich mind, and a rare talent." — Saturday Rtview.
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 13 
 
 JOHNSON {LIONEL)— continued. 
 
 "Mr. Lionel Johnson's poems have the advantage of a two-fold inspiration. 
 Many of these austere strains could never have been written if he had not been 
 Jteeped in the most golden poetry of the Greeks; while, on the other hand, side by 
 side with the mellifluous chanting, there comes another note, mild, sweet, and 
 unsophisticated— the very bird-note of Celtic poetry. And then again one comes on 
 a very ripe and affluent, as of one who has spoiled the very goldenest harvests of song 
 of cultivated ages . . . Mr. Johnson's poetry is concerned with lofty things and 
 is never less than passionately sincere. It is sane, high-minded, and full of felicities.'' 
 —Illustrated London Nezot. 
 
 "The most obvious characteristics of Mr. Johnson's verse are dignity and 
 distinction; but beneath these one feels a passionate poetic impulse, and a grave 
 fascinating music passes from end to emi of the volume." — Realm. 
 
 " It is at once stately and passionate, austere, and free. His passion has a sane 
 mood: his fire a white heat. . . . Once again it is the Critic spirit that make* 
 for higher things. Mr. Johnson's muse is concerned onlv with the highest. Her 
 flight is as of a winged thing, that goes 'higher still and higher,' and has few 
 fluttering* near earth " — Irish Daily Independent. 
 
 JOHNSON (EFF1E). 
 
 In the Fire, and other Fancies. With frontispiece 
 by Walter Crane. Imperial i6mo. 35. 6d. net. 
 
 LAMB {CHARLES). 
 
 Beauty and the Beast. With an Introduction by 
 
 Andrew Lang. Facsimile Reprint of the rare First 
 
 Edition. With 8 choice stipple engravings in brown 
 
 ink, after the original plates. Royal i6mo. 2 s - 6d. net. 
 
 Transferred to the present Publisher. 
 
 LEGENDRE {ADAM), 
 
 The Letters and Papers of. {Diversi Colores Series.) 
 
 [ In preparation. 
 MARSON {REV. C. L.). 
 
 A Volume of Short Stories. [In preparation. 
 
 MARSTON {PHILIP BOURKE). 
 
 A Last Harvest : Lyrics and Sonnets from the 
 Book of Love. Edited, with Biographical Sketch, 
 by Louise Chandler Moulton. 500 copies. Printed 
 by Miller & Son. Post Svo. 55. net. 
 
 [ Very few remain. 
 Also 50 copies on hand-made L.P. \os. 6d. net. 
 
 [ Very few remain. 
 "Among the sonnets with which the volume concludes, there are some, fine 
 examples of a form of verse in which all competent authorities allow that Maistoa 
 excelled 'The Bieadih and Beauty of the Spacious Night,' 'To All in Haven," 
 'Friendship and Love,' 'Love's Deserted Palace' — these, to mention no others, 
 have the ' high seriousness ' which Matthew Arnold made the test of true poetry."— 
 Atbinaum.
 
 14 The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 MASON (A. E. IV.). 
 
 A Romance of Wastdale. Crown 8vo. 3.?. 6d. net. 
 New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. 
 
 MEYNELL {WILFRID). 
 
 The Child set in the Midst. By Modern Poets. 
 With Introduction by W. Meynell, and Facsimile of 
 the MS. of the "Toys" by Coventry Patmore. 
 Royal i6mo. 3-r. 6d. net. 
 
 MORRIS (IV ILL 1 AM). 
 
 See Gaskin. 
 
 MORRISON (G. £.)• 
 
 Alonzo Quixano, otherwise Don Quixote: being a 
 dramatization of the Novel of Cervantes, and espe- 
 cially of those parts which he left unwritten. Cr. 8vo. 
 is. net. 
 "This play, distinguished and full of fine qualities, is a brave attempt to enrich 
 our poetic drama. . . . The reverence shown for Cervantes, the care to preserve 
 intact the characteristics the Spanish master lingered over so humorously, yet so 
 lovingly, have led Mr. Morrison to deserved and notable success." — Academy. 
 
 MUSA CATHOLICA. 
 
 Selected and Edited by Mrs. William Sharp. 
 
 \_In preparation. 
 
 MURRAY (ALMA). 
 
 Portrait as Beatrice Cenci. With Critical Notice 
 containing Four Letters from Robert Browning. 
 8vo. 2.s. net. 
 
 NOEL (HON. RODEN). 
 
 My Sea, and other posthumous Poems. With an Intro- 
 duction by Stanley Addleshaw. Cr. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 net. [Immediately. 
 
 Selected Lyrics from the Works of the late Hon. 
 Roden Noel. With a Biographical and Critical 
 Essay by Percy Addleshaw. Illustrated with Two 
 Portraits, including a reproduction of the famous picture 
 by W. B, Richmond, k.A. [/« preparation.
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 15 
 
 NOEL {HON. RODEN)— continued. 
 
 Poor People's Christmas. Printed at the Aylesbury 
 Press. 250 copies. i6mo. is. net. 
 
 [ Very few remain. 
 
 " Displays the author at his best Mr. Noel always has something 
 
 to say worth saying, and his technique— though like Browning, he is too intent upon 
 idea to bcsiow all due care upon form — is generally sufficient and sometimes 
 masterly. We hear too seldom from a poet of such deep and kindly sympathy." — 
 Sunday Times. 
 
 O' SULLIVAN (VINCENT). 
 
 Poems. With a title-design by Selwyn Image. 
 
 \In preparation. 
 POWELL (F. YORK). 
 See CORBIN. 
 
 PROBYN {MAY). 
 
 Pansies : A Book of Poems. With a title-page and cover 
 design by Minnie Mathews. Fcap. 8vo. 3.5-. 6t. net. 
 
 "Miss Probyn s new volume is a slim one, but rare in quality. She is no mere 
 pretty verse maker; her spontaneity and originality are beyond question, and so far 
 as colour and picturesqueness go, only Mr. Francis Thompson rivals her among the 
 English Catholic peers of to-day." — Sketch. 
 
 " This too small book is a mine of the purest poetry, very holy, and very 
 refined, and removed as far as possible from the tawdry or the common-place. ' — Irish 
 Monthly. 
 
 " The religious poems are in their way perfect, with a tinge of the myrticism 
 one looks for in the poetry of two centuries ago, but so seldom meets with nowadays." 
 .—Catholic Times. 
 
 " Full of a delicate devotional sentiment and much metrical felicity." — Times. 
 
 RHYMERS' CLUB, THE SECOND BOOK OF THE. 
 
 Contributions by E. Dowson, E. J. Ellis, G. A. Greene, 
 A. Hillier, Lionel Johnson, Richard le Gal- 
 lienne, Victor Plarr, E. Radford, E. Rhys, 
 T. W. Rollestone, Arthur Symons, J. Tod- 
 hunter, W. B. Yeats. Printed by Miller & Son. 
 500 copies (of which 400 are for sale). i6mo. 55. net. 
 50 copies on hand-made L.P. 10s. 6d. net. 
 New York : Dodd, Mead dr 5 Co. 
 •'The work of twelve very competent verse writers, many of them not unknown 
 to fame. This form of publication is not a new departure exactly, but it is a recur- 
 rence to the excellent fashion of the Elizabethan age, when 'England's Helicon,' 
 Davison's ' Poetical Rhapsody,' and ' Phcenix Nest,' with scores of other collection!, 
 contained the best songs of the best song-writers of that tuneful epoch." — Black and 
 Wbiti.
 
 16 The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 RHYMERS' CLUB, SECOND BOOK OF THE— continued. 
 
 "The future of these thirteen writers, who have thus banded themselves 
 together, will be witehed with interest. Already there is fulfilment in their work, 
 and there is much promise." - Speaker. 
 
 "In the intervals of Welsh rarebit and stout provided for them at the 'Cheshire 
 Cheese,' in Fleet Street, the members of the Rhymers' Club have produced some very 
 pretty poems, which Mr. Elkin Mathews has issued in his notoriously dainty 
 manner." — Pall Mall Gaxette. 
 
 SCHAFF (DR. P.). 
 
 Literature and Poetry : Papers on Dante, Latin 
 
 Hymns, &c. Portrait and Plates, ioo copies only. 
 
 8vo. 10s. net. [ Very few remain. 
 
 SCULL (W. DELAPLA1NE). 
 
 The Garden of the Matchboxes, and other Stories. 
 Crown 8vo. ls.dd.net. [/« preparation. 
 
 SHARP (WILLIAM) 
 
 Ecce Puella and other Prose Imaginings. Cr. 8vo. 
 35. 6d. net. [Immediately. 
 
 SONG OF SONGS, WHICH IS SOLOMON'S. 
 
 Twenty Drawings from designsby Althea Gyles. 4to. 
 
 One Guinea net. 
 Also 25 copies on special paper, Two Guineas net. 
 
 [hi preparation. 
 [Isham Facsimile Reprint]. 
 S[0UTH1VELL] (R[OBERT]). 
 
 A FOVREFOVLD MEDITATION, OF THE FOURE LAST 
 
 things. Composed in a Diuine Poeme. By R. S. 
 The author of S. Peter's complaint. London, 1606. 
 A Facsimile Reprint, with a Bibliographical Note by 
 Charles Edmonds. 150 copies. Printed on hand- 
 made paper at the Chiswick Press. Roy. i6mo. 
 $s. net. 
 Also 50 copies, large paper. Js. 6d. net. 
 Facsimile reprint from the unique fragment discovered in the autumn of 1867 by 
 Mr. Charles Edmonds in a disused lumber room at Lamport Hall, Northants, and 
 lately purchased by the British Museum authorities. This fragment supplies the first 
 sheet of a previously unknown poem by Robert Southwell, the Roman Catholic poet, 
 whose religious fervour lends a pathetic beauty to everything that he wrote, and 
 future editors of Southwell's works will find it necessary to give it close study. The 
 whole of the Poem has been completed from two MS. copies, which differ in the 
 number of Stanzas. 
 
 STRANGE (E. F.) 
 
 A Book of Thoughts. [In preparation.
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 17 
 
 SYMONDS (JOHN ADDINGTON). 
 
 In the Key of Blue, and other Prose Essays. 
 With cover designed by C. S. Ricketts. Printed at 
 the Ballantyne Press. Third Edition. Thick 
 cr. 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. 
 New York : Macmillan 6° Co, 
 
 " The varietv of Mr. Symonds' interests ! Here are criticisms upon the Venetian 
 Tiepolo, upon M. Zola, upon Mediaeval Norman Songs, upon Elizabethan lyrics, 
 upon Plato's and Dante's ideals of love; and not a sign anywhere, except may be in 
 the last, that he has more concern for, or knowledge of, one theme than another. 
 Add to these artistic themes the delighted records of English or Italian scenes, with 
 their rich beauties of nature or of art, and the human passions that inform them. 
 How joyous a sense of great possessions won at no man's hurt or loss must such a 
 man retain." — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " Some of the essays are very charming, in Mr. Symonds best style, but the 
 first one, that which gives its name to the volume, is at least the most curious of we 
 lot."— Speaker. . . „ .. 
 
 "The other essays are the work of a sound and sensible critic. — National 
 Observer. 
 
 "The literary essays are more restrained, and the prepared student will find therrj 
 full of illumination and charm, while the descriptive papers have the attractiveness 
 which Mr. Symonds always gives to work in this genre." — MR. JAS. ASHCROFT 
 NOBLE, in The Literary World. 
 
 TENNYSON (LORD). 
 
 See Hallam,— Van Dyke. 
 
 TODHUNTER (DR. JOHN). 
 
 A Sicilian Idyll. With a Frontispiece by Walter 
 Crane. Printed at the Chiswick Press. 250 copies. 
 Imp. i6mo. 5s.net. 50 copies hand-made L. P. Fcap. 
 4to. I OS. 6d. net. [ Veryfezo remain. 
 
 " He combines his notes skilfully, and puts his own voice, so^to speak, into 
 them, and the music that results is sweet and of a pastoral tunefulness." — Speaker. 
 
 " The blank verse is the true verse of pastoral, quie' and scholarly, with frequent 
 touches of beauty. The echoes of Theocritus and of the classics at large are modest 
 and felicitous. '—Anti-JaMn. . . , , . , 
 
 " A charming little pastoral play in one act. Thr; verse is singularly graceful, 
 and many bright gems of wit sparkle in the dialogues."- -Literary World. 
 
 " Well worthy of admiration for its grace and delicate finish, us clearness, and 
 its compactness." — Athenaum. 
 
 Also the following works by the same Author transferred 
 to the present Publisher, viz. :— Laurella, and other 
 Poems, 55. net. — Alcestis, a Dramatic Poem, 45. net. 
 — A Study of Shelley, $s. 6d. net. — Forest Songs, 
 and other Poems, y. net.—Twv. Banshee., 3*. net.— 
 JIelena in Troas, 2s. 6d. net.
 
 1 8 The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 TYNAN (KATHARINE). 
 See Hinkson. 
 
 VAN DYKE (HENRY). 
 
 The Poetry of Tennyson. Third Edition, enlarged. 
 Cr. 8vo. 5$. 6i. net. 
 
 The additions consist of a Portrait, Two Chapters, and the 
 Bibliography expanded. The Laureate himself gave valuable 
 aid in correcting various details. 
 
 "Mr. Elkin Mathews publishes a new edition, revised and enlarged, of that 
 excellent woik, 'The Poetry of Tennyson,' by Henry Van Dvke. The additions 
 are considerable. It is extremeiy interesting to go over the bibliographical notes 
 to see the contemptuous or, at best, contemptuously patronising tune of the reviewers 
 in the early thirties gradually turning to civility, to a loud chorus of applause."— 
 Anti-Jacobin. 
 
 " Considered as an aid to the study of the Laureate, this labour of love merits 
 warm commendation. Its grouping of the poems, its biblioarapny and chonology, 
 its catalogue of Biblical allusion and quotations, are each and all substantial accessories 
 to the knowledge of the autnor." — DR. RICHARD GARNETT, in the Illustrated 
 London News. 
 
 WATSON (E. H. LACON). 
 
 The Unconscious Humourist, and other Essays. 
 
 [It; preparation. 
 
 \_Mr. IVedmore's Short Stories. Neiv and Uniform Issue. 
 Crown Svo., each Volume 35. 6d. net.] 
 
 IVEDMORE (FREDERICK). 
 
 Pastorals of France. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 
 35. 6d. net. [Ready. 
 
 New York : Charles Scribnefs Sons. 
 
 " A writer in whom delicacy of literary touch is united with an almost disem- 
 bodied fineness of sentiment." — Athenccum. 
 
 " Of singular quaintness and beauty." — Contemporary Review. 
 
 "The stories are exquisitely told." — The World. 
 
 " Delicious idylls, written with Mr. Wedmore's fascinating command of 
 sympathetic incident, and with his characteristic charm of style." — Illustrated London 
 News. 
 
 "The publication of the 'Pastorals' may be said to have revealed, not only anew 
 talent, but a new literary genre. . . The charm of the writing never fails." — Bookman 
 
 " In their simplicity, their tenderness, their quietude, iheii truthfulness to the 
 remote life that they depict, 'Pastorals oi France ' are almost perfect." — Spectator.
 
 Vigo Street, London, W. 19 
 
 WEDMORE {FREDERICK}— continued. 
 
 Renunciations. Third Edition. With a Portrait by 
 J. J. Shannon. Cr. 8vo. 3*. 6d. net. [Heady. 
 
 New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 "These are clever studies in polite realism. ' — Athtnceum. 
 
 " They are quite unusual. The picture of Richard Pelse, with his one moment 
 of romance, is exquisite." — St. James's Gax,ette. 
 
 " 'The Chemist in the Suburbs,' in ' Renunciations,' is a pure joy. . . . The 
 story of Richard Pelse's life is told with a power not unworthy of the now disabled 
 hand that drew for us the lonely old age of M. Parent." — Mk. Traill, in the 
 New Review. 
 
 "The book belongs to the highest order of imaginative work. ' Renunciations ' 
 are studies from the life — pictures which make plain to us some of the innermost 
 workings of the heart." — Academy. 
 
 ''Mr. Wedmore has gained for himself an enviable reputation. His style has 
 distinction, has ferm. He has the poet's secret how to bring out the beauty of 
 common things. . . 'The Chemist in the Suburbs,' in 'Renunciations,' is his 
 masterpiece."— Saturday Review. 
 
 " We congratulate Mr. Wedmore on his vivid, wholesome, and artistic work, so 
 full of suppressed feeling and of quiet strength." — Standard. 
 
 English Episodes. Second Edition. Cr. 8vo. 35. 6d. 
 net. [Ready. 
 
 New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 "Distinction is the characteristic of Mr. Wedmores manner. These things 
 remain on the mind as things seen ; not read of." — Daily News. 
 
 " A penetrating insight, a fine pathos. Mr. Wedmore is a peculiarly fine and 
 sane and carefully deliberate artist." — Westminster Gaxetie. 
 
 "In 'English Episodes' we have another proof of Mr Wedmore's unique 
 position among the writers of fiction of the day. We hardly think of his short 
 volumes as 'stories,' but rather as life-secrets and hearts' blood, crystalised somehow, 
 and, in their jewel-form, cut with exceeding skill by the hand of a master-workman.' 
 . . The faultless episode of the 'Vicar of Pimlico' is the best in loftiness of 
 purpose and keeness of interest ; but the ' Fitting Obsequies ' is its equal on different 
 lines, and deserves to be a classic.''— World. 
 
 "' English Episodes' are worthy successors of 'Pastorals' and 'Renunciations,' 
 and with them should represent a permanent addition to Literature." — Academy. 
 
 There may also be had the Collected Edition ( iSgj) of '" Pastorals 
 of Prance" and "Renunciations," with Title-page by 
 John Fulleylove, R.I. 55. net. 
 
 WICKSTEED {P. H., Warden of University Halt). 
 Dante : Six Sermons. 
 * # * A Fourth Edition. (Unaltered Reprint). Cr. 8vo. 
 
 is. net. 
 " It is impossible not to be struck wtth the reality and earnestness with which 
 Mr. Wickiteed seeks to do justice to what are the supreme elements of the Curr.meJia 
 its spiritual significance, and the aepth and insight of its moral teaching." — Guardian,
 
 20 The Publications of Elkin Mathews 
 
 WYNNE (FRANCES). 
 
 Whisper! A Volume of Verse. Fcap. 8vo. buckram. 
 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Transferred by the Author to the present Publisher. 
 
 "A little volume of singularly sweet and graceful poems, hardly one ef which 
 can be read by any lover of poetry without definite pleasure, and everyone who reads 
 either of them without is, we venture to say, unable to appreciate that play of light 
 and shadow on the heart ofman which is of the very easence of poetry." -Spectator. 
 
 " The book includes, to my humble taste, many very charming pieces, mu-ical, 
 simple, straightforward and not 'as sad as night.' It is long since 1 have read a more 
 agreeable volume of verse, successful up to the measure of its aims and ambitions."— 
 Mr. ANDREW LANG, in Longman s Magaxint. 
 
 TEATS (W. B.). 
 
 The Shadowy Waters. A Poetic Play. [/« preparation. 
 
 The Wind among the Reeds (Poems). [/» preparation. 
 
 Mr. Elkin Mathews holds likewise the only copies of the 
 following Books printed at the Private f?-ess of the Rev. 
 C. Henry Daniel, Fellow of Worcester College, Oxjord. 
 
 BRIDGES (ROBERT). 
 
 The Growth of Love. Printed in Fell's old English 
 type, ou Whatman paper, ioo copies. Fcap. 4to. 
 £$. 3s. net. 
 
 Shorter Poems. Printed in Fell's old English type, on 
 Whatman paper. 100 copies. Five Parts. Fcap. 41.0. 
 £2. I2s.6d. net. [Very fno remain. 
 
 HYMN I ECCLESIJE CVRA HENRICI DANIEL. 
 Small 8vo. (4882), £1. 15*. net. 
 
 BLAKE HIS SONGS OF INNOCENCE. 
 Sq. i6mo. 100 copies only. i$s. net. 
 
 MILTON ODE ON THE NATIVITY. 
 Sq. l6mo. 105. 6d. net. 
 
 LONDON: VIGO STREET, W. 

 
 DATE DUE 
 
 FFRlfi 
 
 \m 
 
 
 
 ?FE 
 
 ? 1971 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.
 
 UC SQUTHERN.REGJONAL UBFWRY F ACJl II Y 
 I III llll! 
 
 AA 000 608 547 6 
 
 IVERSITY OF CA. RIVERSIC 
 
 3 1210 01285 0028