DOI Artikel:
Le Gallienne, Richard: Four prose fancies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0318
Four Prose Fancies
3H
his publisher ; yet what poet is there left us to-day half so distin-
guished-looking as his publisher ?
Indeed, curiously enough, among no set of men does the desire
to look as commonplace as the rest of the world seem so strong as
among men of letters. Perhaps it is out of consideration for the
rest of the world ; but whatever the reason, immobility of ex-
pression and general mediocrity of style are more characteristic
of them at present than even the military.
It is surely a strange paradox that we should pride ourselves on
schooling to foolish insensibility, on eliminating from them every
mark of individual character, the faces that were intended subtly
and eloquently to image our moods—to look glad when we are
glad, sorry when we are sorry, angry in anger, and lovely in
love.
The impassivity of the modern young man is indeed a weird
and wonderful thing. Is it a mark to hide from us the appalling
sins he none the less openly affects ? Is it meant to conceal that
once in his life he paid a wild visit to “ The Empire ”—by kind
indulgence of the County Council ? that he once chucked a bar-
maid under the chin, that he once nearly got drunk, that he once
spoke to a young lady he did not know—and then ran away ?
One sighs for the young men of the days of Gautier and Hugo,
the young men with red waistcoats who made asses of themselves
at first nights and on the barricades, young men with romance in
their hearts and passion in their blood, fearlessly sentimental and
picturesquely everything.
The lover then was not ashamed that you should catch radiant
glimpses of his love in his eyes—nay ! if you smiled kindly on
him, he would take you by the arm and insist on your breaking a
bottle with him in honour of his mistress. Joy and sorrow then
wore their appropriate colours, according, so to say, to the natural
sumptuary
3H
his publisher ; yet what poet is there left us to-day half so distin-
guished-looking as his publisher ?
Indeed, curiously enough, among no set of men does the desire
to look as commonplace as the rest of the world seem so strong as
among men of letters. Perhaps it is out of consideration for the
rest of the world ; but whatever the reason, immobility of ex-
pression and general mediocrity of style are more characteristic
of them at present than even the military.
It is surely a strange paradox that we should pride ourselves on
schooling to foolish insensibility, on eliminating from them every
mark of individual character, the faces that were intended subtly
and eloquently to image our moods—to look glad when we are
glad, sorry when we are sorry, angry in anger, and lovely in
love.
The impassivity of the modern young man is indeed a weird
and wonderful thing. Is it a mark to hide from us the appalling
sins he none the less openly affects ? Is it meant to conceal that
once in his life he paid a wild visit to “ The Empire ”—by kind
indulgence of the County Council ? that he once chucked a bar-
maid under the chin, that he once nearly got drunk, that he once
spoke to a young lady he did not know—and then ran away ?
One sighs for the young men of the days of Gautier and Hugo,
the young men with red waistcoats who made asses of themselves
at first nights and on the barricades, young men with romance in
their hearts and passion in their blood, fearlessly sentimental and
picturesquely everything.
The lover then was not ashamed that you should catch radiant
glimpses of his love in his eyes—nay ! if you smiled kindly on
him, he would take you by the arm and insist on your breaking a
bottle with him in honour of his mistress. Joy and sorrow then
wore their appropriate colours, according, so to say, to the natural
sumptuary