Old Friends [31]
when they are on the Continent, Miss Harriet does not provide the answer.
Miss Pinkerton's, Stratford-atte-Bowe, Mars 12.
Monsieur,--Vous devez me connaitre, quoique je ne vous connais pas le moins du monde. Il m'est defendu de lire vos romans, je ne sais trop pourquoi; mais j'ai bien lu la notice que M. Henry James a consacree, dans le Fortnightly Review, a votre aimable talent. Vous n'aimez pas, a ce qu'il parait, ni "la sale Angleterre" ni les filles de ce pays immonde. Je figure moi-meme dans vos romans (ou moa-meme," car les Anglais, il est convenu, prononcent ce pronom comme le nom d'un oiseau monstrueux et meme prehistorique de New Zealand)--oui, "Miss Harriet" se risque assez souvent dans vos contes assez risques.
Vous avez pose, Monsieur, le sublime probleme, "Comment se prennentelles les demoiselles anglaises pour sentir toujours le caoutchouc?" ("to smell of india-rubber": traduction Henry James). En premier lieu, Monsieur, elles ne "smell of india-rubber" quand elles se trouvent chez elles, dans les bouges infectes qu'on appelle les "stately homes of England." {19} C'est seulement a l'etranger que nous repandons l'odeur saine et rejouissante de caoutchouc. Et pourquoi? Parce que, Monsieur, Miss Harriet tient a son tub--ou tob--la chose est anglaise; c'est permis pourtant a un galant homme d'en prononcer le nom comme il veut, ou comme il peut
Or, quand elle voyage, Miss Harriet trouve, assez souvent, que le "tub" est une institution tout-a-fait inconnue a ses hotes. Que fait-elle donc? Elle porte dans sa malle un tub de caoutchouc, "patent compressible india-rubber tub!" Inutile a dire que ses vetements se trouvent impregnes du "smell of india-rubber." Voici, Monsieur, la solution naturelle, et meme fort louable, d'une question qui est faite pour desesperer les savants de la France!
Vous, Monsieur, qui etes un styliste accompli, veuillez bien me pardonner les torts que je viens de faire a la belle langue francaise. Dame, on fait ce qu'on peut (comme on dit dans les romans policiers) pour etre intelligible a un ecrivain si celebre, qui ne lit couramment, peut-etre, l'idiome barbare et malsonnant de la sale Angleterre. M. Paul Bourget lui-meme ne lit plus le Grec. Non omnia possumus omnes.
Agreez, Monsieur, mes sentiments les plus distingues.
MISS HARRIET.
LETTER: From S. Gandish, Esq., to the "Newcome Independent."
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
It appears that Mr. Gandish, at a great age--though he was not older than several industrious Academicans--withdrew from the active exercise of his art and employed his learning and experience as Art Critic of the "Newcome Independent." The following critique appears to show traces of declining mental vigour in the veteran Gandish.
Our great gallery has once more opened her doors, if not to the public, nor even to the fashionable elite, at least to the critics. They are a motley throng who lounge on Press Days in the sumptuous halls; ladies, small boys, clergymen are there, and among them but few, perhaps, who have received the training in High Art of your correspondent, and have had their eye, through a lifetime more than commonly prolonged, on the glorious Antique. And what shall we say of the present Academy? In some ways, things have improved a little since my "Boadishia" came back on my hands (1839) at a time when High Art and the Antique would not do in this country: they would not do. As far as the new exhibition shows, they do better now than when the century was younger and "Portrait of the Artist, by S. Gandish"--at thirty-three years of age--was offered in vain to the jealously Papist clique who then controlled the Uffizi. Foreigners are more affable now; they have taken Mr. Poynter's of himself.
To return to the Antique, what the President's "Captive Andromache" must have cost in models alone is difficult to reckon. When times were cheaper, fifty years since, my ancient Britons in "Boadishia" stood me in thirty pounds: the central figures, however, were members of my own family. To give every one his due,
Miss Pinkerton's, Stratford-atte-Bowe, Mars 12.
Monsieur,--Vous devez me connaitre, quoique je ne vous connais pas le moins du monde. Il m'est defendu de lire vos romans, je ne sais trop pourquoi; mais j'ai bien lu la notice que M. Henry James a consacree, dans le Fortnightly Review, a votre aimable talent. Vous n'aimez pas, a ce qu'il parait, ni "la sale Angleterre" ni les filles de ce pays immonde. Je figure moi-meme dans vos romans (ou moa-meme," car les Anglais, il est convenu, prononcent ce pronom comme le nom d'un oiseau monstrueux et meme prehistorique de New Zealand)--oui, "Miss Harriet" se risque assez souvent dans vos contes assez risques.
Vous avez pose, Monsieur, le sublime probleme, "Comment se prennentelles les demoiselles anglaises pour sentir toujours le caoutchouc?" ("to smell of india-rubber": traduction Henry James). En premier lieu, Monsieur, elles ne "smell of india-rubber" quand elles se trouvent chez elles, dans les bouges infectes qu'on appelle les "stately homes of England." {19} C'est seulement a l'etranger que nous repandons l'odeur saine et rejouissante de caoutchouc. Et pourquoi? Parce que, Monsieur, Miss Harriet tient a son tub--ou tob--la chose est anglaise; c'est permis pourtant a un galant homme d'en prononcer le nom comme il veut, ou comme il peut
Or, quand elle voyage, Miss Harriet trouve, assez souvent, que le "tub" est une institution tout-a-fait inconnue a ses hotes. Que fait-elle donc? Elle porte dans sa malle un tub de caoutchouc, "patent compressible india-rubber tub!" Inutile a dire que ses vetements se trouvent impregnes du "smell of india-rubber." Voici, Monsieur, la solution naturelle, et meme fort louable, d'une question qui est faite pour desesperer les savants de la France!
Vous, Monsieur, qui etes un styliste accompli, veuillez bien me pardonner les torts que je viens de faire a la belle langue francaise. Dame, on fait ce qu'on peut (comme on dit dans les romans policiers) pour etre intelligible a un ecrivain si celebre, qui ne lit couramment, peut-etre, l'idiome barbare et malsonnant de la sale Angleterre. M. Paul Bourget lui-meme ne lit plus le Grec. Non omnia possumus omnes.
Agreez, Monsieur, mes sentiments les plus distingues.
MISS HARRIET.
LETTER: From S. Gandish, Esq., to the "Newcome Independent."
THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
It appears that Mr. Gandish, at a great age--though he was not older than several industrious Academicans--withdrew from the active exercise of his art and employed his learning and experience as Art Critic of the "Newcome Independent." The following critique appears to show traces of declining mental vigour in the veteran Gandish.
Our great gallery has once more opened her doors, if not to the public, nor even to the fashionable elite, at least to the critics. They are a motley throng who lounge on Press Days in the sumptuous halls; ladies, small boys, clergymen are there, and among them but few, perhaps, who have received the training in High Art of your correspondent, and have had their eye, through a lifetime more than commonly prolonged, on the glorious Antique. And what shall we say of the present Academy? In some ways, things have improved a little since my "Boadishia" came back on my hands (1839) at a time when High Art and the Antique would not do in this country: they would not do. As far as the new exhibition shows, they do better now than when the century was younger and "Portrait of the Artist, by S. Gandish"--at thirty-three years of age--was offered in vain to the jealously Papist clique who then controlled the Uffizi. Foreigners are more affable now; they have taken Mr. Poynter's of himself.
To return to the Antique, what the President's "Captive Andromache" must have cost in models alone is difficult to reckon. When times were cheaper, fifty years since, my ancient Britons in "Boadishia" stood me in thirty pounds: the central figures, however, were members of my own family. To give every one his due,