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Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874 (99 page)

BOOK: Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874

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Page 588

how to take care of it, to use it without wasting it, to put a good bit of it by, to make it fructify. I've got a loaf on the shelf; I've got everything, in fact, but the great thing

The great thing?

The sense of having done the bestthe sense, which is the real life of the artist and the absence of which is his death, of having drawn from his intellectual instrument the finest music that nature had hidden in it, of having played it as it should be played. He either does that or he doesn'tand if he doesn't he isn't worth speaking of. And precisely those who really know don't speak of him. He may still hear a great chatter, but what he hears most is the incorruptible silence of Fame. I have squared her, you may say, for my little hourbut what is my little hour? Don't imagine for a moment I'm such a cad as to have brought you down here to abuse or to complain of my wife to you. She is a woman of very distinguished qualities, to whom my obligations are immense; so that, if you please, we will say nothing about her. My boysmy children are all boysare straight and strong, thank God! and have no poverty of growth about them, no penury of needs. I receive, periodically, the most satisfactory attestation from Harrow, from Oxford, from Sandhurst (oh, we have done the best for them!) of their being living, thriving, consuming organisms.

It must be delightful to feel that the son of one's loins is at Sandhurst, Paul remarked enthusiastically.

It isit's charming. Oh, I'm a patriot!

Then what did you meanthe other night at Summersoftby saying that children are a curse?

My dear fellow, on what basis are we talking? St. George asked, dropping upon the sofa, at a short distance from his visitor. Sitting a little sideways he leaned back against the opposite arm with his hands raised and interlocked behind his head. On the supposition that a certain perfection is possible and even desirableisn't it so? Well, all I say is that one's children interfere with perfection. One's wife interferes. Marriage interferes.

You think then the artist shouldn't marry?

He does so at his perilhe does so at his cost.

Not even when his wife is in sympathy with his work?

Page 589

She never isshe can't be! Women don't know what work is.

Surely, they work themselves, Paul Overt objected.

Yes, very badly, Oh, of course, often, they think they understand, they think they sympathise. Then it is that they are most dangerous. Their idea is that you shall do a great lot and get a great lot of money. Their great nobleness and virtue, their exemplary conscientiousness as British females, is in keeping you up to that. My wife makes all my bargains with my publishers for me, and she has done so for twenty years. She does it consummately well; that's why I'm really pretty well off. Are you not the father of their innocent babes, and will you withhold from them their natural sustenance? You asked me the other night if they were not an immense incentive. Of course they arethere's no doubt of that!

For myself, I have an idea I need incentives, Paul Overt dropped.

Ah well, then,
n'en parlons plus!
said his companion, smiling.

You are an incentive, I maintain, the young man went on. You don't affect me in the way you apparently would like to. Your great success is what I seethe pomp of Ennismore Gardens!

Success?do you call it success to be spoken of as you would speak of me if you were sitting here with another artista young man intelligent and sincere like yourself? Do you call it success to make you blushas you would blushif some foreign critic (some fellow, of course, I mean, who should know what he was talking about and should have shown you he did, as foreign critics like to show it!) were to say to you: He's the one, in this country, whom they consider the most perfect, isn't he? Is it success to be the occasion of a young Englishman's having to stammer as you would have to stammer at such a moment for old England? No, no; success is to have made people tremble after another fashion. Do try it!

Try it?

Try to do some really good work.

Oh, I want to, heaven knows!

Well, you can't do it without sacrifices; don't believe that

Page 590

for a moment, said Henry St. George. I've made none. I've had everything. In other words, I've missed everything.

You've had the full, rich, masculine, human, general life, with all the responsibilities and duties and burdens and sorrows and joysall the domestic and social initiations and complications. They must be immensely suggestive, immensely amusing.

Amusing?

For a strong manyes.

They've given me subjects without number, if that's what you mean; but they've taken away at the same time the power to use them. I've touched a thousand things, but which one of them have I turned into gold? The artist has to do only with thathe knows nothing of any baser metal. I've led the life of the world, with my wife and my progeny; the clumsy, expensive, materialised, brutalised, Philistine, snobbish life of London. We've got everything handsome, even a carriagewe are prosperous, hospitable, eminent people. But, my dear fellow, don't try to stultify yourself and pretend you don't know what we
haven't
got. It's bigger than all the rest. Between artistscome! You know as well as you sit there that you would put a pistol-ball into your brain if you had written my books!

It appeared to Paul Overt that the tremendous talk promised by the master at Summersoft had indeed come off, and with a promptitude, a fulness, with which his young imagination had scarcely reckoned. His companion made an immense impression on him and he throbbed with the excitement of such deep soundings and such strange confidences. He throbbed indeed with the conflict of his feelingsbewilderment and recognition and alarm, enjoyment and protest and assent, all commingled with tenderness (and a kind of shame in the participation,) for the sores and bruises exhibited by so fine a creature, and with a sense of the tragic secret that he nursed under his trappings. The idea of
his
being made the occasion of such an act of humility made him flush and pant, at the same time that his perception, in certain directions, had been too much awakened to conceal from him anything that St. George really meant. It had been his odd fortune to blow upon the deep waters, to make them surge

Page 591

and break in waves of strange eloquence. He launched himself into a passionate contradiction of his host's last declaration; tried to enumerate to him the parts of his work he loved, the splendid things he had found in it, beyond the compass of any other writer of the day. St. George listened awhile, courteously; then he said, laying his hand on Paul Overt's:

That's all very well; and if your idea is to do nothing better there is no reason why you shouldn't have as many good things as Ias many human and material appendages, as many sons or daughters, a wife with as many gowns, a house with as many servants, a stable with as many horses, a heart with as many aches. He got up when he had spoken thus, and then stood a moment near the sofa, looking down on his agitated pupil. Are you possessed of any money? it occurred to him to ask.

None to speak of.

Oh, well, there's no reason why you shouldn't make a goodish incomeif you set about it the right way. Study
me
for thatstudy me well. You may really have a carriage.

Paul Overt sat there for some moments without speaking. He looked straight before himhe turned over many things. His friend had wandered away from him, taking up a parcel of letters that were on the table where the roll of proofs had lain. What was the book Mrs. St. George made you burnthe one she didn't like? he abruptly inquired.

The book she made me burnhow did you know that? St. George looked up from his letters.

I heard her speak of it at Summersoft.

Ah, yes; she's proud of it. I don't knowit was rather good.

What was it about?

Let me see. And St. George appeared to make an effort to remember. Oh, yes, it was about myself. Paul Overt gave an irrepressible groan for the disappearance of such a production, and the elder man went on: Oh, but
you
should write it
you
should do me. There's a subject, my boy: no end of stuff in it!

Again Paul was silent, but after a little he spoke. Are there no women that really understandthat can take part in a sacrifice?

Page 592

How can they take part? They themselves are the sacrifice. They're the idol and the altar and the flame.

Isn't there even
one
who sees further? Paul continued.

For a moment St. George made no answer to this; then, having torn up his letters, he stood before his disciple again, ironic. Of course I know the one you mean. But not even Miss Fancourt.

I thought you admired her so much.

It's impossible to admire her more. Are you in love with her? St. George asked.

Yes, said Paul Overt.

Well, then, give it up.

Paul stared. Give up my love?

Bless me, no; your idea.

My idea?

The one you talked with her about. The idea of perfection.

She would help itshe would help it! cried the young man.

For about a yearthe first year, yes. After that she would be as a millstone round its neck.

Why, she has a passion for completeness, for good workfor everything you and I care for most.

You and I is charming, my dear fellow! She has it indeed, but she would have a still greater passion for her children; and very proper too. She would insist upon everything's being made comfortable, advantageous, propitious for them. That isn't the artist's business.

The artistthe artist! Isn't he a man all the same?

St. George hesitated. Sometimes I really think not. You know as well as I what he has to do: the concentration, the finish, the independence that he must strive for, from the moment that he begins to respect his work. Ah, my young friend, his relation to women, especially in matrimony, is at the mercy of this damning factthat whereas he can in the nature of things have but one standard, they have about fifty. That's what makes them so superior, St. George added, laughing. Fancy an artist with a plurality of standards, he went on. To
do
itto do it and make it divine is the only thing he has to think about. Is it done or not? is his only question.

Page 593

Not Is it done as well as a proper solicitude for my dear little family will allow? He has nothing to do with the relative, nothing to do with a dear little family!

Then you don't allow him the common passions and affections of men?

Hasn't he a passion, an affection, which includes all the rest? Besides, let him have all the passions he likesif he only keeps his independence. He must afford to be poor.

Paul Overt slowly got up. Why did you advise me to make up to her, then?

St. George laid his hand on his shoulder. Because she would make an adorable wife! And I hadn't read you then.

I wish you had left me alone! murmured the young man.

I didn't know that that wasn't good enough for you, St. George continued.

What a false position, what a condemnation of the artist, that he's a mere disfranchised monk and can produce his effect only by giving up personal happiness. What an arraignment of art! Paul Overt pursued, with a trembling voice.

Ah, you don't imagine, by chance, that I'm defending art? Arraignment, I should think so! Happy the societies in which it hasn't made its appearance; for from the moment it comes they have a consuming ache, they have an incurable corruption in their bosom. Assuredly, the artist is in a false position. But I thought we were taking him for granted. Pardon me, St. George continued;
Ginistrella
made me!

Paul Overt stood looking at the floorone o'clock struck, in the stillness, from a neighbouring church-tower. Do you think she would ever look at me? he asked at last.

Miss Fancourtas a suitor? Why shouldn't I think it? That's why I've tried to favour youI have had a little chance or two of bettering your opportunity.

Excuse my asking you, but do you mean by keeping away yourself? Paul said, blushing.

I'm an old idiotmy place isn't there, St. George replied, gravely.

I'm nothing, yet; I've no fortune; and there must be so many others.

You're a gentleman and a man of genius. I think you might do something.

BOOK: Henry James: Complete Stories 1864-1874

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