Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

sacrificing their personal liberty; the grand offices of flash firms were shut up; hundreds of professional men of all classes were left with next to no remedy for payment even of their disbursements, and the only good which came out of it all was that the practice of Parliament was remodelled and simplified. Large fortunes were made by men who had solid businesses and substantial clients, especially by the Bar, the solicitors, and engineers; the system of railway extensions, although not without many hard contests, was fairly fought out, and has ended, at the end of forty years, in a kind of armed truce, which no party feels inclined to break, and outside speculators who start short branches in the hope of being taken up by one of two rival companies find their undertaking valueless. The confidence trick' is played out; shabby fellows, who employ professional men, and turn quietly round and say that they have no client, are as well known now as "legs" on a racecourse; and railway property, instead of the most precarious, has become one of the safest investments of the day. There is one solitary member of the Parliamentary Bar of 1846 practising there now; there are very few Parliamentary agents of that year left, and the solicitors who were conducting Bills in the railway mania, and now practising in Parliament, can be counted on the fingers of both hands.

[ocr errors]

Speaking once again personally from

actual experience of the extreme labor of the Session of 1845-46, I may say that from the beginning of the sitting of Parliament in February, 1846, until the middle of September, when all the arrears of work and accounts were made up after the House rose in August, I do not believe that, excepting on Saturday evenings and Sundays, I had a single hour to myself, except for meals, morning or night; and when I went off for a month's rest in September, and found myself on the sea-shore at Ryde-which was then little more than a large village, with one street only, Union Street, which extended to the top of the hill by the theatre--and tried to persuade myself that the full enjoyment of land and sea and the glorious sky and air were my own, I felt that the previous eight months had been cut right out of what a young man of three-and-twenty had a right to suppose to be some of the best of his life. I felt that I had been a puppet which had been wound up and oiled and put on the wires and worked and overstrained: I had never lived. I began to think of the vulgar scoundrels who were kings of men then, with their dirty hands and diamond rings, and who were scattered to the four winds of heaven, and to wonder that some of them had not stolen my watch; and I realized the truth of the old adage, "All is not gold that glistens."-Cornhill Magazine.

[blocks in formation]

JUST now, when Mr. Irving's admirably staged production at the Lyceum has set numbers of people reading translations of "Faust," it may not be without interest to say something about certain illustrations of Goethe's play. Retschz's famous outline illustrations are so well know-Mr. Irving's Mephistopheles is more like Retschz's than that of any other illustrator-that there is no need to dwell on them at detailed length. Retschz's illustrations are, it will be remembered, executed in outline only, and, so far as I know, it was his

merit, if merit it is, to apply this method for the first time to a whole connected series of designs. It is a method which has the advantage of saving the artist a good deal of trouble, and also, no doubt, of giving to the work a cachet of its own. Retschz's" Faust" is far and away the best thing which he did in this kind-is indeed immeasurably superior to the Fridolin," the Othello" and the Hamlet'' which he did in the same fashion; and it is only fair to add that the work shows a very decided perception and intention, and that the inten

[ocr errors]

66

་་

[ocr errors]

tion is invariably rendered with clearcut accuracy. The intention is by no means always up to the draughtsman's own best level, and the drawing is conventional-the various figures' feet, for instance, are constantly too small, and the same action is repeated over and over again-but both, so far as they go, attain their purpose. The types of face are those familiar on the German stage in the play of Faust," and the costumes and grouping will be recognized by many who have not seen the play, but who have seen M. Gounod's opera. The artist's best achievement in expression is undoubtedly the Mephistopheles. In this we have the type which Mr. Irving has taken and improved on by touches of his own genius--for genius can show itself in such a matter as make-up," although that matter is not, as some young actors seem to think, the head and front of the art of acting. The type referred to may be traced back by the curious through the conventional mediæval demon to the Pagan Pan, from whom it differs in the matter of beard, resembling him closely, however, in the half-flat, half-aquiline front, the overshadowing brows, and the look of malicious humor mixed with conscious power. Retschz's Spirit that Denies is good throughout-best perhaps when he cowers terrified at the vision of Gretchen

on

the Brocken, when he laughs at Faust's reproaches in the forest, and when he is seen descending a long street, watching with seeming carelessness the meeting of Faust and Gretchen. Here indeed Retschz's Mephistopheles comes nearest to Mr. Irving's in its diabolical and humorous nonchalance, as it does in the hill and wood scene to the actor's withering scorn of the selfish complaining mortal. For catching and rendering the spirit of sheer devilish pranking, Retschz is at his best in the Witch's Kitchen, and in the Sabbath, in which last he has introduced various infernal cantrips which could not be exhibited on the stage, but in which he has not attempted the pomp and splendor of the hellish storm upon which the curtain falls at the Lyceum. In this regard, as in some others, one may find a freer spirit and touch in Retschz's illustrations to the second part of Faust,' but with that we are not now concerned.

66

[ocr errors]

Less well known to the world at large, though the work of a more famous artist, are Delacroix's illustrations, executed when he was quite young, and inspired by the artist's seeing a representation of "Faust" in German. Before considering these it may be worth while to say a word or two of other illustrations less popular than Retschz's, and less remarkable than Delacroix's.

Herr von Kreling's academic, very pretty, and slightly flabby illustrations suggest nothing so much as that Nature when her hand was in to model M. Bouguereau thought to make all slab by giving him a German counterpart. One only of these by no means unattractive designs shows real originality and strength, and that is the one in which Mephistopheles as the travelling student stands with a quiet infernal smile behind Faust's chair. At the same time one may in justice add what is naturally suggested by the comparison to M. Bouguereau-that the illustrations are throughout graceful, and show a strong sense of beauty on the part of the artist, who has attained in all of them a lively picturesqueness which might be thought adequate, and more than adequate, were the subject one which did not exact the highest flights of imagination and art. The beauty and the limits of the painter's method are well shown in the voluptuous vision thrown before the perceptions of the sleeping Doctor by Mephistopheles.

Another noteworthy set of illustrations is that made by Peter von Cornelius, a well-known exponent of the modern mediæval German school, wonderfully accurate in a hard conventional draughtsmanship, wonderfully humorous without intending to be so, and when not unconsciously humorous wonderfully dull. The title page represents a sort of medley of the chief points in the play, and is arranged after the fashion of the stage in a miracle play, with a conventional heaven at the top, and a huge demon's head vomiting imps at the bottom. The prologue in the theatre is treated quaintly but not interestingly, the Easter Monday is merely medieval, and the Auerbach's Cellar is feeble, with a Mephistopheles entirely lacking character. The Coming out of the Church" is very curious. Gretchen is

[graphic]

an awkward leering quean, Faust a thickwitted peasant, and Mephistopheles a dwarf idiot. In the garden scene, on the other hand, the figure of Gretchen is graceful and tender. There are here two odd resemblances, as will presently be seen, between Cornelius's and Delacroix's treatment. Faust in this design is obviously a Jew, and Mephistopheles has his head screwed on the wrong way. In the scene outside the Cathedral, with Gretchen praying at a shrine, the principal figure, that of a stork resting one claw on a shallow basin of water out of which it is drinking, is rendered with rare skill and character. Of the remaining illustrations little need be said; they have the merits and the defects of Cornelius's school, but the merits are not of a kind which tell happily in the treatment of such a subject as Faust," and the defects for the same reason become glaring, as in the instance of the Evil Spirit in the Cathedral, who looks like an eminent law yer suggesting a line of defence to the kneeling Gretchen.

[ocr errors]

Herr Liezen Mayer's cartoons, which were exhibited in London some eight years ago, have a decided touch of poetry and passion, but the types are not kept up throughout, and there is a failure in the Mephistopheles, except, oddly enough, in situations where Mephistopheles's back is turned to the specta

tor.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

It is to be noted throughout the series that Herr Mayer has a remarkable faculty for putting expression into backs. Also he clearly spared no pains in searching for and finding fit materials for his accessories. Witness various windows copied from Albert Dürer's "S. Jerome, and among other things a horned candelabrum taken from Zäzinger's print of "The Lovers.' Among the earliest cartoons the second, the prologue in the theatre, is the best but it is in numbers six and seven, Wagner going to Faust,'' and Faust in Prayer," that we begin to see Herr Mayer's best work. The figure of the pedantic pupil holding a dim lamp and peering painfully up the stairs is highly characteristic, and that of the praying Faust is instinct with poetic feeling. In Mephistopheles and the Scholar'' (14) we get a brilliant contrast to the comparative feebleness of the Mephistopheles in others of the

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

cartoons. Herr Mayer has chosen the moment when to the student's request Mephistopheles, disguised as the Doctor, answers Sehr wohl," and writes in the proffered book Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum. Visitors to the Lyceum will recall the mysterious chilling smile with which Mr. Irving delivers the words. Herr Mayer has given, and successfully, the same kind of expression to his Mephistopheles. Among the later cartoons "The Agony before the Mater Dolorosa" (39) and "Margaret in the Dungeon" (50) show unusual power and pathos, while the two Walpurgis Night scenes, 43 and 44, are full of a grim and grotesque humor.

We now come to Delacroix's designs. One peculiarity of these is, that in several of them it is but too easy to point to drawing which is certainly nothing short of ludicrous, and that in some few cases the young artist's conception even has failed to rise beyond a clever childishness.

On the other hand, almost all through the series the genius of the great colorist comes out in the treatment of light and shade and of textures, and many of the designs are instinct with the fervor and grandeur of imagination. In the first one we have Faust sitting in his study, which is lighted only by a hanging lamp, gazing at a skull; here the shadows on the tapestries and the textures themselves are handled in a masterly way; but the central figure is unreal and phantom-like, and the face is that of a Jew with a sneering smile. In the second illustration we find Faust, still an evident Jew with a black beard, sitting and looking bored in company with Wagner, a humped and hideous dwarf, in the open country. Faust employs one hand in putting his finger in his eye, and the other in scratching his knee. The landscape, with a rapid flight of birds, is excellent, and the groups of people in the middle distance and background are as well placed as they are indifferently drawn. It is not until we come to the third scene, in which the poodle first appears, that we understand the enthusiasm with which some wellqualified judges regard these early performances of Delacroix's. The poodle is, like Philip II. in Victor Hugo's poem, a thing of dread. It has in attitude and expression the full measure of diabolical

has its head set on its shoulders so that the face looks out over the spinal cord ; in other respects Gretchen resembles a rudely-carved doll, Faust a low-lived imbecile, and Mephistopheles an infirm and debauched harlequin. Nor is there much to be said for the next two

quality which the artist misses sometimes when he represents Mephistopheles in his human shape. It is that monster of nature, a dog which is all evil. It has besides an indefinable touch of horror to indicate that its wickedness is not of this world. It would in any case be the dominating figure of the scene, in which, illustrations-Mephistopheles entering however, Faust, again with a coal-b'ack beard, and Wagner are but dull and illdrawn shapes. The following illustration, representing the transformation of Mephistopheles into the Travelling Student, is extremely odd. The accessories are as usual admirably drawn, one might almost add "and colored," so strongly does the painter's instinct assert itself in the textures and light and shade. But the two figures are extravagant. Mephistopheles (as a travelling student) wears the usual dress and "make-up' of the bearded soldier Valentine. He stands on one side of a table, leaning on a long two-handed sword, and leering vacuously at Faust. Faust on the other side leans over the table with a stupefied look, and brandishes two fingers frantically in the air at nothing. Not less singular is the next illustration, where Mephistopheles instructs the Scholar. Both are impossible figures, and at the back Faust, equally impossible, is clearly saying to himself: "Shall I fetch this fellow a blow on the mazzard?''

1

For the seventh of the series, the scene in Auerbach's Cellar, one can find nothing but praise. It is as impressive in execution as original and true in conception. The brilliant flames springing from the spilt wine give an added weirdness to the fantastic group. The wild movement animating the whole, the free action of each figure, the varying characters of the assembled sots-all these are of the first rank. One drunken fellow leaning over to look with stupid curiosity at the purgatorial fire affords a most marked contrast to the calm, contemptuous impassiveness of Faust, and to the different coolness of Mephistopheles, whose low devilish chuckle you seem to hear as you look at his face. This fine piece of work is followed by Faust's first meeting with Gretchen, which is among the least meritorious of the set. Each one of the three figures, Faust, Mephistopheles, and Gretchen,

Martha's house, and Gretchen at her spinning-wheel-except that the firstnamed has a sense of movement and a certain weirdness. The following scene of the duel is admirable. The street and. sky, as in other of the drawings, foretell the master of color and atmosphere, and the figures have a striking air of motion and life. It is only unlucky that a fold of Mephistopheles's cloak held in the left hand is so arranged as to look exactly like an umbrella. In the subsequent scene of the flight after Valentine has fallen mortally wounded Mephistopheles again appears like a harlequin with a revolving head, and Faust, borrowing a hint from the stage direction for Mephistopheles during the Witches' Sabbath, has suddenly grown very old. Gretchen and the Evil Spirit in the Cathedral occupy the next illustration. Gretchen is a sleepy

doll, the Evil Spirit a mad Salvationist bawling in its ear. The design of Faust and Mephistopheles in the Hartz Mountains on their way to the Sabbath is much of a muchness with the one last named. The figures are poor and carelessly drawn, and the foliage is feebly and faintly indicated by a profusion of scratches; but the shortcomings of this illustration are more than made up for by the power and poetry of the next one, that of the Sabbath itself. In this the painter has filled the foreground with five figures only, Gretchen and four demons. In the right hand corner is a hideous group of snakes and toads, and perhaps the most appalling of the four fiends squats in the very middle. Behind is indicated a vast expanse of landscape overhung by a dark storm, and illuminated beneath the darkness with a wild and eerie light. Delacroix's extraordinary force of imagination is shown in his having contrived to suggest in the stretch of landscape at the back an unseen tumult of horrors. Not inferior to this is the ride past the gibbet, a piece of magnificent devilry which is in draw

ing what Berlioz's Ride to the Abyss is in music. And here perhaps it is best -saying nothing of the last illustration, except that it is not happy-to take our leave of a work which with all its faults of youth, imperfect understanding here

and there of what it illustrates, ignorance and carelessness of drawing, has yet qualities of poetry and grandeur which dwarf other illustrations of Goethe's great play.-Temple Bar.

MOHAMMEDANISM IN CENTRAL AFRICA.

BY JOSEPH THOMSON.

FOR some time past the subject of the civilization of Africa has been a favorite one with all classes. Each European country has vied with the others in attempting ostensibly to open it up for the special benefit of the inhabitants. The methods adopted sometimes appear strange, and we are apt to become suspicious when we find beneath a veneer of cotton a large amount of rum and gin, and civilization forced on the notice of the negro with sword and gun. It may perhaps not be without a certain amount of interest to inquire if there are any other agencies-apart from the European-at work pursuing the noble aim of elevating the negro to a higher level of humanity. It will, I suppose, It will, I suppose, seem passing strange to many when I point to Mohammedanism as one of these agencies engaged in this great task.

Since the appearance of Mohammed the religion which he founded has been a favorite subject of attack and misrepresentation. First looked upon as a form of idolatry, it was, later on, described as a mass of blasphemous imposture, and only within the last few years have a few sympathetic and impartial students of the Koran dared to point out the genuine veins of gold which ramify through the system, and, risking the odium theologicum, to hold up its author as a hero. Even yet, to the great mass of the people, Mohammedanism is merely thought of in a vague sort of way as something connected with polygamy, as the inspiring source of the slave trade, as the cause of all the evils which prevail in North Africa, Asia Minor, and Turkey, and as in some way or other a curse and a blight to whatever country falls under its influence.

It is not my business to point out here how Mohammedanism, in being

thus depicted, is treated with injustice; but I may be permitted to remind the reader that the man who said that the worst of men is the seller of men," and who declared that nothing was more pleasing to God than the emancipation of slaves, could never have in any way encouraged or sanctioned the slave trade. To argue that a religion is responsible for all the vile acts of its professors is monstrous in the extreme. Yet that is exactly what we are continually doing with regard to Mohammedanism. We forget that the Mohammedan might turn the tables on us with a vengeance, and lay our brutal slave trade of the past at the door of Christianity, as well as our incessant wars and all the crying evils of the gin trade in the present. And has he not as good a right to say that these are the necessary outcome of Christianity as we have to say that the slave trade and other evils are produced and encouraged by Islam?

We are not, however, called upon to discuss these questions, nor am I the man fitted to do it. I propose to direct attention to the civilizing and elevating influence which this so much vilified religion is exercising in the heart of Africa, and to the transformation it is effecting in the whole political and social condition of inner Africa north of the equator.

During the three expeditions which I conducted in East Central Africa I saw nothing to suggest Mohammedanism as a civilizing power. Whatever living force might be in the religion remained latent. The Arabs, or their descendants, in those parts were not propagandists. There were no missionaries to preach Islam, and the natives of Muscat were content that their slaves should conform to a certain extent to the forms of the religion. They left the East

« VorigeDoorgaan »