The Works of Max Beerbohm
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8 This etext was prepared by Tom Weiss (tom@iname.com)
with thanks to G. Banks for proofreading.
I have transliterated the Greek passages. Here are some approximate
translations (with thanks to a nameless Radlettite and
www.perseus.tufts.edu):
--philomathestatoi ton neaniskon: some of the youths most eager for
knowledge
--Ne^pios: childish
--hexeis apodeiktikai: things that can be proven (Aristotle, Nic.
Ethics)
--eido^lon amauron: shadowy phantom (phrase used by Homer in The
Odyssey to describe the specter Athena sends to comfort Penelope)
--all' aiei: but always
--tina pho^ta megan kai kalon edegmen: I received some great and
beautiful light
The Works of Max Beerbohm
by Max Beerbohm
With a Bibliography by John Lane
`Amid all he has here already achieved, full, we may
think, of the quiet assurance of what is to come,
his attitude is still that of the scholar; he
seems still to be saying, before all
things, from first to last, "I
am utterly purposed
that I will not
offend."'
CONTENTS
Dandies and Dandies
A Good Prince
1880
King George the Fourth
The Pervasion of Rouge
Poor Romeo!
Diminuendo
Bibliography
Dandies and Dandies
How very delightful Grego's drawings are! For all their mad
perspective and crude colour, they have indeed the sentiment of style,
and they reveal, with surer delicacy than does any other record, the
spirit of Mr. Brummell's day. Grego guides me, as Virgil Dante,
through all the mysteries of that other world. He shows me those
stiff-necked, over-hatted, wasp-waisted gentlemen, drinking Burgundy
in the Cafe' des Milles Colonnes or riding through the village of
Newmarket upon their fat cobs or gambling at Crockford's. Grego's
Green Room of the Opera House always delights me. The formal way in
which Mdlle. Mercandotti is standing upon one leg for the pleasure of
Lord Fife and Mr. Ball Hughes; the grave regard directed by Lord
Petersham towards that pretty little maid-a-mischief who is risking
her rouge beneath the chandelier; the unbridled decorum of Mdlle.
Hullin and the decorous debauchery of Prince Esterhazy in the
distance, make altogether a quite enchanting picture. But, of the
whole series, the most illuminative picture is certainly the Ball at
Almack's. In the foreground stand two little figures, beneath whom, on
the nether margin, are inscribed those splendid words, Beau Brummell
in Deep Conversation with the Duchess of Rutland. The Duchess is a
girl in pink, with a great wedge-comb erect among her ringlets, the
Beau tre`s de'gage', his head averse, his chin most supercilious upon
his stock, one foot advanced, the gloved fingers of one hand caught
lightly in his waistcoat; in fact, the very deuce of a pose.
In this, as in all known images of the Beau, we are struck by the
utter simplicity of his attire. The `countless rings' affected by
D'Orsay, the many little golden chains, `every one of them slighter
than a cobweb,' that Disraeli loved to insinuate from one pocket to
another of his vest, would have seemed vulgar to Mr. Brummell. For is
it not to his fine scorn of accessories that we may trace that first
aim of modern dandyism, the production of the supreme effect through
means the least extravagant? In certain congruities of dark cloth, in
the rigid perfection of his linen, in the symmetry of his glove with
his hand, lay the secret of Mr. Brummell's miracles. He was ever most
economical, most scrupulous of means. Treatment was everything with
him. Even foolish Grace and foolish Philip Wharton, in their book
about the beaux and wits of this period, speak of his dressing-room as
`a studio in which he daily composed that elaborate portrait of
himself which was to be exhibited for a few hours in the clubrooms of
the town.' Mr. Brummell was, indeed, in the utmost sense of the word,
an artist. No poet nor cook nor sculptor, ever bore that title more
worthily than he.
And really, outside his art, Mr. Brummell had a personality of almost
Balzacian insignificance. There have been dandies, like D'Orsay, who
were nearly painters; painters, like Mr. Whistler, who wished to be
dandies; dandies, like Disraeli, who afterwards followed some less
arduous calling. I fancy Mr. Brummell was a dandy, nothing but a
dandy, from his cradle to that fearful day when he lost his figure and
had to flee the country, even to that distant day when he died, a
broken exile, in the arms of two religieuses. At Eton, no boy was so
successful as he in avoiding that strict alternative of study and
athletics which we force upon our youth. He once terrified a master,
named Parker, by asserting that he thought cricket `foolish.' Another
time, after listening to a reprimand from the headmaster, he twitted
that learned man with the asymmetry of his neckcloth. Even in Oriel he
could see little charm, and was glad to leave it, at the end of his
first year, for a commission in the Tenth Hussars. Crack though the
regiment was--indeed, all the commissions were granted by the Regent
himself--young Mr. Brummell could not bear to see all his brother-
officers in clothes exactly like his own; was quite as deeply annoyed
as would be some god, suddenly entering a restaurant of many mirrors.
One day, he rode upon parade in a pale blue tunic, with silver
epaulettes. The Colonel, apologising for the narrow system which
compelled him to so painful a duty, asked him to leave the parade. The
Beau saluted, trotted back to quarters and, that afternoon, sent in
his papers. Henceforth he lived freely as a fop, in his maturity,
should.
His de'but in the town was brilliant and delightful. Tales of his
elegance had won for him there a precedent fame. He was reputed rich.
It was known that the Regent desired his acquaintance. And thus,
Fortune speeding the wheels of his cabriolet and Fashion running to
meet him with smiles and roses in St. James's, he might well, had he
been worldly or a weakling, have yielded his soul to the polite
follies. But he passed them by. Once he was settled in his suite, he
never really strayed from his toilet-table, save for a few brief
hours. Thrice every day of the year did he dress, and three hours were
the average of his every toilet, and other hours were spent in council
with the cutter of his coats or with the custodian of his wardrobe. A
single, devoted life! To White's, to routs, to races, he went, it is
true, not reluctantly. He was known to have played battledore and
shuttlecock in a moonlit garden with Mr. Previte' and some other
gentlemen. His elopement with a young Countess from a ball at Lady
Jersey's was quite notorious. It was even whispered that he once, in
the company of some friends, made as though he would wrench the
knocker off the door of some shop. But these things he did, not, most
certainly, for any exuberant love of life. Rather did he regard them
as healthful exercise of the body and a charm against that dreaded
corpulency which, in the end, caused his downfall. Some recreation
from his work even the most strenuous artist must have; and Mr.
Brummell naturally sought his in that exalted sphere whose modish
elegance accorded best with his temperament, the sphere of le plus
beau monde. General Bucknall used to growl, from the window of the
Guards' Club, that such a fellow was only fit to associate with
tailors. But that was an old soldier's fallacy. The proper associates
of an artist are they who practise his own art rather than they who--
however honourably--do but cater for its practice. For the rest, I am
sure that Mr. Brummell was no lackey, as they have suggested. He
wished merely to be seen by those who were best qualified to
appreciate the splendour of his achievements. Shall not the painter
show his work in galleries, the poet flit down Paternoster Row? Of
rank, for its own sake, Mr. Brummell had no love. He patronised all
his patrons. Even to the Regent his attitude was always that of a
master in an art to one who is sincerely willing and anxious to learn
from him.
Indeed, English society is always ruled by a dandy, and the more
absolutely ruled the greater that dandy be. For dandyism, the perfect
flower of outward elegance, is the ideal it is always striving to
realise in its own rather incoherent way. But there is no reason why
dandyism should be confused, as it has been by nearly all writers,
with mere social life. Its contact with social life is, indeed, but
one of the accidents of an art. Its influence, like the scent of a
flower, is diffused unconsciously. It has its own aims and laws, and
knows none other. And the only person who ever fully acknowledged this
truth in aesthetics is, of all persons most unlikely, the author of
Sartor Resartus. That any one who dressed so very badly as did Thomas
Carlyle should have tried to construct a philosophy of clothes has
always seemed to me one of the most pathetic things in literature. He
in the Temple of Vestments! Why sought he to intrude, another Clodius,
upon those mysteries and light his pipe from those ardent censers?
What were his hobnails that they should mar the pavement of that
delicate Temple? Yet, for that he betrayed one secret rightly heard
there, will I pardon his sacrilege. `A dandy,' he cried through the
mask of Teufelsdro"ck, `is a clothes-wearing man, a man whose trade,
office, and existence consists in the wearing of clothes. Every
faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically
consecrated to this one object, the wearing of clothes wisely and
well.' Those are true words. They are, perhaps, the only true words in
Sartor Resartus. And I speak with some authority. For I found the key
to that empty book, long ago, in the lock of the author's empty
wardrobe. His hat, that is still preserved in Chelsea, formed an
important clue.
But (behold!) as we repeat the true words of Teufelsdro"ck, there
comes Monsieur Barbey D'Aurevilly, that gentle moqueur, drawling, with
a wave of his hand, `Les esprits qui ne voient pas les choses que par
leur plus petit co^te', ont imagine' que le Dandysme e'tait surtout
l'art de la mise, une heureuse et audacieuse dictature en fait de
toilette et d'e'le'gance exte'rieure. Tre`s-certainement c'est cela
aussi, mais c'est bien davantage. Le Dandysme est toute une manie`re
d'e^tre et l'on n'est pas que par la co^te' mate'riellement visible.
C'est une manie`re d'e^tre entie`rement compose'e de nuances, comme il
arrive toujours dans les socie'te's tre`s-vieilles et tre`s-
civilise'es.' It is a pleasure to argue with so suave a subtlist, and
we say to him that this comprehensive definition does not please us.
We say we think he errs.
Not that Monsieur's analysis of the dandiacal mind is worthless by any
means. Nor, when he declares that George Brummell was the supreme king
of the dandies and fut le dandysme me^me, can I but piously lay one
hand upon the brim of my hat, the other upon my heart. But it is as an
artist, and for his supremacy in the art of costume, and for all he
did to gain the recognition of costume as in itself an art, and for
that superb taste and subtle simplicity of mode whereby he was able to
expel, at length, the Byzantine spirit of exuberance which had
possessed St. James's and wherefore he is justly called the Father of
Modern Costume, that I do most deeply revere him. It is not a little
strange that Monsieur D'Aurevilly, the biographer who, in many ways,
does seem most perfectly to have understood Mr. Brummell, should
belittle to a mere phase that which was indeed the very core of his
existence. To analyse the temperament of a great artist and then to
declare that his art was but a part--a little part--of his
temperament, is a foolish proceeding. It is as though a man should say
that he finds, on analysis, that gunpowder is composed of potassium
chloride (let me say), nitrate and power of explosion. Dandyism is
ever the outcome of a carefully cultivated temperament, not part of
the temperament itself. That manie`re d'e^tre, entie`rement compose'e
de nuances, was not more, as the writer seems to have supposed, than
attributory to Mr. Brummell's art. Nor is it even peculiar to dandies.
All delicate spirits, to whatever art they turn, even if they turn to
no art, assume an oblique attitude towards life. Of all dandies, Mr.
Brummell did most steadfastly maintain this attitude. Like the single-
minded artist that he was, he turned full and square towards his art
and looked life straight in the face out of the corners of his eyes.
It is not hard to see how, in the effort to give Mr. Brummell his due
place in history, Monsieur D'Aurevilly came to grief. It is but
strange that he should have fallen into a rather obvious trap. Surely
he should have perceived that, so long as Civilisation compels her
children to wear clothes, the thoughtless multitude will never
acknowledge dandyism to be an art. If considerations of modesty or
hygiene compelled every one to stain canvas or chip marble every
morning, painting and sculpture would in like manner be despised. Now,
as these considerations do compel every one to envelop himself in
things made of cloth and linen, this common duty is confounded with
that fair procedure, elaborate of many thoughts, in whose accord the
fop accomplishes his toilet, each morning afresh, Aurora speeding on
to gild his mirror. Not until nudity be popular will the art of
costume be really acknowledged. Nor even then will it be approved.
Communities are ever jealous (quite naturally) of the artist who works
for his own pleasure, not for theirs--more jealous by far of him whose
energy is spent only upon the glorification of himself alone. Carlyle
speaks of dandyism as a survival of `the primeval superstition, self-
worship.' `La vanite',' are almost the first words of Monsieur
D'Aurevilly, `c'est un sentiment contre lequel tout le monde est
impitoyable.' Few remember that the dandy's vanity is far different
from the crude conceit of the merely handsome man. Dandyism is, after
all, one of the decorative arts. A fine ground to work upon is its
first postulate. And the dandy cares for his physical endowments only
in so far as they are susceptible of fine results. They are just so
much to him as to the decorative artist is inilluminate parchment, the
form of a white vase or the surface of a wall where frescoes shall be.
Consider the words of Count D'Orsay, spoken on the eve of some duel,
`We are not fairly matched. If I were to wound him in the face it
would not matter; but if he were to wound me, ce serait vraiment
dommage!' There we have a pure example of a dandy's peculiar vanity--
`It would be a real pity!' They say that D'Orsay killed his man--no
matter whom--in this duel. He never should have gone out. Beau
Brummell never risked his dandyhood in these mean encounters. But
D'Orsay was a wayward, excessive creature, too fond of life and other
follies to achieve real greatness. The power of his predecessor, the
Father of Modern Costume, is over us yet. All that is left of
D'Orsay's art is a waistcoat and a handful of rings--vain relics of no
more value for us than the fiddle of Paganini or the mask of
Menischus! I think that in Carolo's painting of him, we can see the
strength, that was the weakness, of le jeune Cupidon. His fingers are
closed upon his cane as upon a sword. There is mockery in the
inconstant eyes. And the lips, so used to close upon the wine-cup, in
laughter so often parted, they do not seem immobile, even now. Sad
that one so prodigally endowed as he was, with the three essentials of
a dandy--physical distinction, a sense of beauty and wealth or, if you
prefer the term, credit--should not have done greater things. Much of
his costume was merely showy or eccentric, without the rotund unity of
the perfect fop's. It had been well had he lacked that dash and
spontaneous gallantry that make him cut, it may be, a more attractive
figure than Beau Brummell. The youth of St. James's gave him a
wonderful welcome. The flight of Mr. Brummell had left them as sheep
without a shepherd. They had even cried out against the inscrutable
decrees of fashion and curtailed the height of their stocks. And (lo!)
here, ambling down the Mall with tasselled cane, laughing in the
window at White's or in Fop's Alley posturing, here, with the devil in
his eyes and all the graces at his elbow, was D'Orsay, the prince
paramount who should dominate London and should guard life from
monotony by the daring of his whims. He accepted so many engagements
that he often dressed very quickly both in the morning and at
nightfall. His brilliant genius would sometimes enable him to appear
faultless, but at other times not even his fine figure could quite
dispel the shadow of a toilet too hastily conceived. Before long he
took that fatal step, his marriage with Lady Harriet Gardiner. The
marriage, as we all know, was not a happy one, though the wedding was
very pretty. It ruined the life of Lady Harriet and of her mother, the
Blessington. It won the poor Count further still further from his art
and sent him spinning here, there, and everywhere. He was continually
at Cleveden, or Belvoir, or Welbeck, laughing gaily as he brought down
our English partridges, or at Crockford's, smiling as he swept up our
English guineas from the board. Holker declares that, excepting Mr.
Turner, he was the finest equestrian in London and describes how the
mob would gather every morning round his door to see him descend,
insolent from his toilet, and mount and ride away. Indeed, he
surpassed us all in all the exercises of the body. He even essayed
pree"minence in the arts (as if his own art were insufficient to his
vitality!) and was for ever penning impenuous verses for circulation
among his friends. There was no great harm in this, perhaps. Even the
handwriting of Mr. Brummell was not unknown in the albums. But
D'Orsay's painting of portraits is inexcusable. The aesthetic vision
of a dandy should be bounded by his own mirror. A few crayon sketches
of himself--dilectissimae imagines--are as much as he should ever do.
That D'Orsay's portraits, even his much-approved portrait of the Duke
of Wellington, are quite amateurish, is no excuse. It is the process
of painting which is repellent; to force from little tubes of lead a
glutinous flamboyance and to defile, with the hair of a camel therein
steeped, taut canvas, is hardly the diversion for a gentleman; and to
have done all this for a man who was admittedly a field-marshal....
I have often thought that this selfish concentration, which is a part
of dandyism, is also a symbol of that einsamkeit felt in greater or
less degree by the practitioners of every art. But, curiously enough,
the very unity of his mind with the ground he works on exposes the
dandy to the influence of the world. In one way dandyism is the least
selfish of all the arts. Musicians are seen and, except for a price,
not heard. Only for a price may you read what poets have written. All
painters are not so generous as Mr. Watts. But the dandy presents
himself to the nation whenever he sallies from his front door. Princes
and peasants alike may gaze upon his masterpieces. Now, any art which
is pursued directly under the eye of the public is always far more
amenable to fashion than is an art with which the public is but
vicariously concerned. Those standards to which artists have gradually
accustomed it the public will not see lightly set at naught. Very
rigid, for example, are the traditions of the theatre. If my brother
were to declaim his lines at the Haymarket in the florotund manner of
Macready, what a row there would be in the gallery! It is only by the
impalpable process of evolution that change comes to the theatre.
Likewise in the sphere of costume no swift rebellion can succeed, as
was exemplified by the Prince's effort to revive knee-breeches. Had
his Royal Highness elected, in his wisdom, to wear tight trousers
strapped under his boots, `smalls' might, in their turn, have
reappeared, and at length--who knows?--knee-breeches. It is only by
the trifling addition or elimination, modification or extension, made
by this or that dandy and copied by the rest, that the mode proceeds.
The young dandy will find certain laws to which he must conform. If he
outrage them he will be hooted by the urchins of the street, not
unjustly, for he will have outraged the slowly constructed laws of
artists who have preceded him. Let him reflect that fashion is no
bondage imposed by alien hands, but the last wisdom of his own kind,
and that true dandyism is the result of an artistic temperament
working upon a fine body within the wide limits of fashion. Through
this habit of conformity, which it inculcates, the army has given us
nearly all our finest dandies, from Alcibiades to Colonel Br*b*z*n de
nos jours. Even Mr. Brummell, though he defied his Colonel, must have
owed some of his success to the military spirit. Any parent intending
his son to be a dandy will do well to send him first into the army,
there to learn humility, as did his archetype, Apollo, in the house of
Admetus. A sojourn at one of the Public Schools is also to be
commended. The University it were well to avoid.
Of course, the dandy, like any other artist, has moments when his own
period, palling, inclines him to antique modes. A fellow-student once
told me that, after a long vacation spent in touch with modern life,
he had hammered at the little gate of Merton and felt of a sudden his
hat assume plumes and an expansive curl, the impress of a ruff about
his neck, the dangle of a cloak and a sword. I, too, have my Eliza-
bethan, my Caroline moments. I have gone to bed Georgian and awoken
Early Victorian. Even savagery has charmed me. And at such times I
have often wished I could find in my wardrobe suitable costumes. But
these modish regrets are sterile, after all, and comprimend. What
boots it to defy the conventions of our time? The dandy is the `child
of his age,' and his best work must be produced in accord with the
age's natural influence. The true dandy must always love contemporary
costume. In this age, as in all precedent ages, it is only the
tasteless who cavil, being impotent to win from it fair results. How
futile their voices are! The costume of the nineteenth century, as
shadowed for us first by Mr. Brummell, so quiet, so reasonable, and, I
say emphatically, so beautiful; free from folly or affectation, yet
susceptible to exquisite ordering; plastic, austere, economical, may
not be ignored. I spoke of the doom of swift rebellions, but I doubt
even if any soever gradual evolution will lead us astray from the
general precepts of Mr. Brummell's code. At every step in the progress
of democracy those precepts will be strengthened. Every day their
fashion is more secure, corroborate. They are acknowledged by the
world. The barbarous costumes that in bygone days were designed by
class-hatred, or hatred of race, are dying, very surely dying. The
costermonger with his pearl-emblazoned coat has been driven even from
that Variety Stage, whereon he sought a desperate sanctuary. The
clinquant corslet of the Swiss girl just survives at bals costume's. I
am told that the kilt is now confined entirely to certain of the
soldiery and to a small cult of Scotch Archai"cists. I have seen men
flock from the boulevards of one capital and from the avenues of
another to be clad in Conduit Street. Even into Oxford, that curious
little city, where nothing is ever born nor anything ever quite dies,
the force of the movement has penetrated, insomuch that tasselled cap
and gown of degree are rarely seen in the streets or colleges. In a
place which was until recent times scarcely less remote, Japan, the
white and scarlet gardens are trod by men who are shod in boots like
our own, who walk--rather strangely still--in close-cut cloth of
little colour, and stop each other from time to time, laughing to show
how that they too can furl an umbrella after the manner of real
Europeans.
It is very nice, this universal acquiescence in the dress we have
designed, but, if we reflect, not wonderful. There are three apparent
reasons, and one of them is aesthetic. So to clothe the body that its
fineness be revealed and its meanness veiled has been the aesthetic
aim of all costume, but before our time the mean had never been
struck. The ancient Romans went too far. Muffled in the ponderous
folds of a toga, Adonis might pass for Punchinello, Punchinello for
Adonis. The ancient Britons, on the other hand, did not go far enough.
And so it had been in all ages down to that bright morning when Mr.
Brummell, at his mirror, conceived the notion of trousers and simple
coats. Clad according to his convention, the limbs of the weakling
escape contempt, and the athlete is unobtrusive, and all is well. But
there is also a social reason for the triumph of our costume--the
reason of economy. That austerity, which has rejected from its toilet
silk and velvet and all but a few jewels, has made more ample the
wardrobes of Dives, and sent forth Irus nicely dressed among his
fellows. And lastly there is a reason of psychology, most potent of
all, perhaps. Is not the costume of today, with its subtlety and
sombre restraint, its quiet congruities of black and white and grey,
supremely apt a medium for the expression of modern emotion and modern
thought? That aptness, even alone, would explain its triumph. Let us
be glad that we have so easy, yet so delicate, a mode of expression.
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