Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells: The Best of Early Vanity Fair Read online

  • • •

  Naturally, this has lost me a great many friends. But far worse has been the effect on my moral fiber. Before, I was modest. Now, I despise practically everybody except professional pugilists. I meet some great philosopher, and, instead of looking with reverence at his nobby forehead, I merely feel that, if he tried to touch his toes thirty times without bending his knees, he would be in the hospital for a week. An eminent divine is to me simply a man who would have a pretty thin time if he tried to lie on his back and wave his legs fifteen times in the air without stopping. . . .

  There is another danger. I heard, or read, somewhere of a mild and inoffensive man to whom Nature, in her blind way, had given a wonderful right-hand punch. Whenever he got into an argument, he could not help feeling that there the punch was and it would be a pity to waste it. The knowledge that he possessed that superb hay-maker was a perpetual menace to him. He went through life a haunted man. Am I to become like him? Already, after doing these exercises for a few weeks, I have a waist-line of the consistency of fairly stale bread. In time it must infallibly become like iron. There is a rudimentary muscle growing behind my right shoulder-blade. It looks like an orange and is getting larger every day. About this time next year, I shall be a sort of human bomb. I will do my very best to control myself, but suppose a momentary irritation gets the better of me and I let myself go! It does not bear thinking of.

  • • •

  Brooding tensely over this state of things, I have, I think, hit on a remedy. What is required is a system of spiritual exercises which shall methodically develop the soul so that it keeps pace with the muscles and the self-esteem.

  Let us say that you open with that exercise where you put your feet under the chest of drawers and sit up suddenly. Well, under my new system, instead of thinking of the effect of this maneuver on the abdominal muscles, you concentrate your mind on some such formula as, “I must remember that I have not yet subscribed to the model farm for tuberculous cows.”

  Having completed this exercise, you stand erect and swing the arms from left to right and from right to left without moving the lower half of the body. As you do this, say to yourself, “This, I know, is where I get the steel-and-indiarubber results on my deltoids, but I must not forget that there are hundreds of men whose confining work in the sweat shops has entirely deprived them of opportunities to contract eugenic marriages.”

  This treatment, you will find, induces a humble frame of mind admirably calculated to counterbalance the sinful pride engendered by your physical exercises.

  Space forbids a complete list of these spiritual culture exercises, but I am now preparing a small illustrated booklet, particulars of which will be found in the advertising pages. An accompanying portrait shows me standing with my hands behind my head and with large, vulgar muscles standing out all over me. But there is a vast difference, which you will discover when you look at my face. I am not wearing the offensively preoccupied expression of most physical-culture advertisements. You will notice a rapt, seraphic expression in the eyes and a soft and spiritual suggestion of humility about the mouth.

  AUGUST STRINDBERG

  GEORG BRANDES

  FROM OCTOBER 1914

  Strindberg was the most brilliant author of modern Sweden, and one of the most gifted I have ever known. Ibsen, in speaking of him, once said: “Here is a greater man than I.”

  But Strindberg was a wholly abnormal type, mentally. A man so eccentric that, except for his masterly writings, I should have called him insane.

  But let me begin by saying a word as to his physical appearance! His strongly modeled forehead clashed strangely with the vulgarity of his lower features. The forehead reminded one of Jupiter’s; the mouth and chin of a Stockholm street urchin. He looked as though he sprang from irreconcilable races. The upper part of his face was that of the mental aristocrat,—the lower belonged to “the servant girl’s son,” as he called himself in his autobiography.

  During a long acquaintance with him I was fortunate in being able to agree with him on fundamental principles and to find that minor differences of opinion never irritated him against me, nor caused the slightest break between us.

  It was my fate to be present at many crucial moments in Strindberg’s mental life. More than once I have seen him on the turn-rail, as it were, which changed the entire direction of his spiritual and mental locomotive. And each time I have been able to remark how deep and sincere were his changes, even if they contained a trace of the theatrical in their outward expressions.

  • • •

  I saw Strindberg for the first time during a short stay which he made in Denmark. I remember his first visit to me very clearly, because he made several rather odd remarks to me. After the usual greetings had been exchanged I asked him if he had any friends or relatives in the little town of Roskilde, for I had seen by the papers that he had spent a good deal of time there.

  “Indeed not,” he replied. “I visited Roskilde on account of the Bistrup Insane Asylum, which, as you know, is located there. I wanted the director to give me a certificate as to my sanity. I have an idea my relatives are plotting to trap me.”

  “And what did the doctor say?” I asked.

  “He said he could not give me a certificate off hand, but that he undoubtedly could do so if I would remain there under observation for a few weeks.”

  I then realized that I was dealing with an original temperament. Strindberg continued:

  “I suppose you know that my tragic and ridiculous marriage has been broken off?”

  “I did not even know you were married,” I replied. “I am thoroughly familiar with your books, but I know nothing whatever of your private life.”

  Let me explain that Strindberg’s hatred of women amounted almost to a monomania. Many critics have attributed his violent antipathy to them—an obsession which colored all of his work—to his first marriage, which, as is well known, was most unhappy. But, like many women haters—Schopenhauer, merely to quote an example—Strindberg was always under some strong feminine influence.

  At about this time he asked me to direct the rehearsals of his play “The Father” at the Casino Theatre in Copenhagen. A few days later, as I was trying to explain the play to the actors, who were used to plays dealing with more frivolous subjects, Strindberg tapped me on the shoulder and said:

  “Listen! Is 1500 kr. too much to pay here for an apartment of six rooms and a kitchen?”

  “But why in the world do you want six rooms, you, a single man!”

  “I am not single! I have a wife and three children with me.”

  “You must excuse me, but did you not say the other day that your marriage had been broken off?”

  “In a measure, yes! I sent Madame Strindberg away as my wife, but I have retained her as my mistress.”

  “Excuse me, but such a thing is impossible. By all the laws of this country under such circumstances, she immediately becomes your wife again. You may safely embark on such a venture with any other woman in the world but not with your wife.”

  • • •

  One November night in the year 1896, I witnessed a crisis in Strindberg’s life. I had been out, and found his card on my desk as I returned. He was passing through Copenhagen, he had written, and did not wish to leave the city without seeing me. And he asked me to meet him in some quiet place, as he had brought no good clothes with him.

  From this note I gathered that he must have grown more peculiar than ever. When I reached his hotel I learned that he had already gone to bed.

  “He sent for me himself,” I said.

  The door of his room was open. He was in bed, fast asleep. As I touched him on the shoulder he awoke and said:

  “I took a sleeping powder. I felt sure you wouldn’t come.”

  But he got up and dressed himself quickly, and it turned out that he was much better dressed than I. While d
ressing, he said:

  “Did you know that my existence was predicted, long ago, by Balzac?”

  “Where?”

  “In ‘Seraphitus-Seraphita.’” He searched for the book in his valise, opened it and pointed to the words: ‘Once again the light shall come the North.’ “There! you see, Balzac refers to me.”

  I said, to tease him a little: “How do you know Balzac didn’t allude to Ibsen?”

  “Oh, no, he meant me, there isn’t a doubt about it.”

  Balzac’s book had made a strong impression on him on account of its touches of Swedenborgianism.

  We went to a restaurant and ordered some wine. Strindberg grew excited as he talked.

  “You’re out of touch with the reigning intellectual movements,” he said. “We’re living in an age of occultism. Occultists rule the life and literature of our day. Everything else is out of date.”

  • • •

  He spoke with much admiration of the newer occultists and with real reverence of Joseph Pelladan who, at the time, still called himself Sar and Mage. He also spoke of the Marquis of Guita, about whom his friend Maurice Barres had written a book. I told him that I had been following with interest the discussion between Huysmans and Guita. Huysmans—then living in Lyons—accused Guita—residing in Paris—of having willed him acute pains in the chest by means of black magic. Guita retorted that he dealt with white magic only, not black, and described his proceedings. To this Huysmans replied that he had seen the ingredients of black magic in a closet in Guita’s home.

  This remark excited Strindberg violently. “Is it possible,” he asked, “that Huysmans had the same experience as I? I’ve been suffering, too, from a pain in the chest which a man in Stockholm caused me during my stay in Paris.”

  “Who was he?”

  “My one time benefactor, who tried to punish me for my recent ingratitude.”

  Then, without transition: “You have an enemy. A newspaper enemy. I want to do something for you. Let me kill your enemy.”

  “You’re very kind. But I should prefer not.”

  “But no one would know about it.”

  “So all criminals think. Besides, don’t you feel it would be rather unjust to kill a man on account of an unkind newspaper article?”

  “Well, let’s not kill him. We’ll simply blind him.”

  “I still have my doubts. However, how would you go about it?”

  “If you will give me the man’s photograph, I will, with my magic, blind him by driving a needle through his eyes.”

  “In that case, you could easily deprive me of my eyesight, too, if you wished?”

  “Hardly. It must be done with hatred.”

  “Granted, but if a man who hates me tears my picture into pieces, will I fall to the ground in bleeding bits?”

  This remark seemed to put him out, and he did not answer me.

  He continued, however, to explain in detail the intricacies of magic—black and white—and he dwelt particularly on the evils of black magic when exercised by criminal hands.

  The restaurant closed, and we began to walk up and down along the water-front.

  • • •

  At one time Strindberg was greatly interested in alchemy. He even claimed to have obtained gold in small quantities.

  He once gave me a copy of his book, “Inferno.” All through it there runs the mortal fear of persecution. The book shows that he felt that a special interest attached to his every movement, and that supernatural powers were forever busied with him, now warning him, now punishing him, now guiding him and never allowing him to get out of their reach. In Paris, for instance, he felt this distinctly. Strindberg lived in constant fear of being murdered by a Polish writer for having loved the latter’s wife before she met her husband. A Norwegian artist—a friend of the Pole—met Strindberg, and, probably in order to play a joke on him, told him that the dreaded man was expected in Paris.

  “Is he coming to kill me?” asked Strindberg.

  “Of course. Be on your guard.”

  Strindberg wished, however, more details, and decided to look the artist up, but he dared not approach the house. A few days later he screwed up his courage and went to call on him. At the door he saw a little girl on the doorstep. In her hand she held a playing card. It was the ten of spades.

  “The ten of spades,” he shouted. “There is foul play in this house,” he muttered, and hastily left the place.

  In “Inferno” Strindberg thought that he had finally found the explanation of many of the mysteries of Swedenborg’s spirit world. The book closes with Strindberg’s longing to seek solace in the Catholic Church. Swedenborg had prejudiced him against Protestantism, explaining that it was treason against the Mother Church. The growth of the Catholic Church in America, England and Scandinavia seemed to him to prove the decisive triumph of Catholicism over Protestantism and the Greek Church. And he concludes the book by confessing that he has sought to be admitted to a Belgian monastery.

  Later on, however, Strindberg publicly declared that he never wished to seek consolation in the Catholic Church.

  THE WORLD’S NEW ART CENTRE

  FREDERICK JAMES GREGG

  FROM JANUARY 1915

  New York is now, for the time being at least—the art capital of the world, that is to say, the commercial art centre, where paintings and sculptures are viewed, discussed and purchased and exchanged.

  Many predictions had been made, from time to time, as to when this state of affairs would come about. For years the drift of “old masters” has been Westward. Dr. Bode of Berlin, and other experts, had talked about the danger represented by the American buyer as competitor, in the open market, with the public galleries of Europe, limited as the latter were by slender resources and the niggardliness of parliaments. The London National Gallery and the Louvre have envied and feared the mighty resources of our Metropolitan Museum, which enabled it, at any moment, to pounce on whatever might emerge from private ownership—whether it was a newly discovered Rembrandt or a hitherto unsuspected collection of Chinese porcelains. So, while England, or France, was appealing to the patriotic to subscribe in order that some treasure might be kept from making the Atlantic voyage, word would come suddenly that the worst had happened, and that the dreadful Americans had scored again, thanks to the Rogers bequest or the alertness of some private benefactor.

  The Great War—which has affected everything and everybody—hastened what prophets regarded as inevitable. Paris, London, Berlin and Petrograd, having the grim necessity of national self-preservation to attend to, simply went out of business as far as “art” was concerned.

  The young painters and sculptors, like the young men in the picture-shops, are with the Colors. The exhibitions are all off. Hundreds of studios are locked up, and the cafés where the quarrelsome geniuses took their meals, and their ease, are but sad and quiet resorts of the casual and careless sightseer.

  • • •

  This is where technically neutral New York arose to her opportunity. For a while everything was up in the air, like Wall Street. But through patience and perseverance the tangle was straightened out. So the six weeks’ Matisse exhibition, planned to take place in the Montross Galleries in January, has become an assured fixture, and the set of exhibitions of the men of the younger French school at the Carroll Galleries will occur in the winter months just as if Europe, instead of being convulsed from one end to the other, were wrapped in profound peace. It is to be hoped that not many of the paintings will have to be hung with the customary purple.

  New York will see, at the Matisse show, what the most discussed of all the Moderns regards as his most important, because most significant, work.

  In the ultra Modern exhibition, at the Carroll Galleries, will be seen the work of Gleizes, Jacques Villon; Derain, painter of the “Fenêtre sur Parc;” Redon, of the humming flowers; Chabaud, of
the “Flock Leaving the Barn;” de Segonzac, Dufy, de la Fresnaye, Moreau, Marcel Duchamp, who staggered New York with his “Nude Descending the Stairs;” Rouault, Picasso in his successive “red,” “blue,” and “cubist” periods; de Vlaminck, Signac, Seurat, and Duchamp-Villon. There will also be total strangers to us like Vera, Valtet, Ribemont-Desseignes, Mare, Sala and Jacques Bon. In addition, the veteran impressionist master Renoir will make his bow to the public as a sculptor, with a figure in the round and a plaque.

  One striking thing about the “new men” is the way in which they change from one medium to another, as Picasso and Jacques Villon with their etchings, Dufy with his wood engravings, Vera with his wood cuts and Mare with his book bindings. Perhaps, as far as our own artists are concerned, one result of the display of the creations of these Frenchmen will be to cause them to show what they have been doing in unexpected directions. The wood carvings of Arthur Davies and the wood engravings of Walt Kuhn would astonish most of those who are not familiar with the very private activities of these two artists.

  • • •

  There has been more quarreling about Henri Matisse than about any other individualist of our epoch. If Matisse were not convinced of his genius, he might well be reassured on the subject by listening to the shouts of “Impostor!” “Rogue!” “Knave!” with which he is greeted by those who don’t like him. But this solid artist, who looks more like a professor of biology than a painter, is quite undisturbed by such popular clamor. If it is dishonest to paint without regard to the rules, he is content to be considered dishonest. But—great virtue in your “but”—nobody knows where your blessed rules are to be found, not even the learned creatures who talk so much about them.

  Matisse does not care whether or not they call him a charlatan. He considers his art perfectly sincere and simple. Take his method of etching a portrait. Days are taken up in observation of his subject. Then he sets to work rather elaborately. The result is put aside. The second attack shows still less detail. In the final effort—that for which the rest was but preparation—every non-essential has been eliminated—nothing is left but something which suggests rather the qualities than the externals of his model. In a word—even if such a comparison is dangerous—Matisse develops a work from the heterogeneous to the homogeneous, from the complex to the baldly simple.