September 25th.
My dear Harvard—I have carried out my plan, of which I gave you a hint in my last, and I only regret that I should not have done it before. It is human nature, after all, that is the most interesting thing in the world, and it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker. There is a want of earnestness in that life of hotels and railroad trains, which so many of our countrymen are content to lead in this strange Old World, and I was distressed1 to find how far I, myself; had been led along the dusty, beaten track. I had, however, constantly wanted to turn aside into more unfrequented ways; to plunge2 beneath the surface and see what I should discover. But the opportunity had always been missing; somehow, I never meet those opportunities that we hear about and read about—the things that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I am always on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present itself; I am always looking out for experiences, for sensations—I might almost say for adventures.
The great thing is to live, you know—to feel, to be conscious of one’s possibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, like a letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard, when I feel as if I were really capable of everything—capable de tout3, as they say here—of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism4. Oh, to be able to say that one has lived—qu’on a vécu, as they say here—that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You will, perhaps, reply, it is easy to say it; but the thing is to make people believe you! And, then, I don’t want any second-hand5, spurious sensations; I want the knowledge that leaves a trace—that leaves strange scars and stains and reveries behind it! But I am afraid I shock you, perhaps even frighten you.
If you repeat my remarks to any of the West Cedar6 Street circle, be sure you tone them down as your discretion7 will suggest. For yourself; you will know that I have always had an intense desire to see something of real French life. You are acquainted with my great sympathy with the French; with my natural tendency to enter into the French way of looking at life. I sympathise with the artistic9 temperament10; I remember you used sometimes to hint to me that you thought my own temperament too artistic. I don’t think that in Boston there is any real sympathy with the artistic temperament; we tend to make everything a matter of right and wrong. And in Boston one can’t live—on ne peut pas vivre, as they say here. I don’t mean one can’t reside—for a great many people manage that; but one can’t live æsthetically—I may almost venture to say, sensuously12. This is why I have always been so much drawn13 to the French, who are so æsthetic, so sensuous11. I am so sorry that Théophile Gautier has passed away; I should have liked so much to go and see him, and tell him all that I owe him. He was living when I was here before; but, you know, at that time I was travelling with the Johnsons, who are not æsthetic, and who used to make me feel rather ashamed of my artistic temperament. If I had gone to see the great apostle of beauty, I should have had to go clandestinely—en cachette, as they say here; and that is not my nature; I like to do everything frankly14, freely, naïvement, au grand jour. That is the great thing—to be free, to be frank, to be naïf. Doesn’t Matthew Arnold say that somewhere—or is it Swinburne, or Pater?
When I was with the Johnsons everything was superficial; and, as regards life, everything was brought down to the question of right and wrong. They were too didactic; art should never be didactic; and what is life but an art? Pater has said that so well, somewhere. With the Johnsons I am afraid I lost many opportunities; the tone was gray and cottony, I might almost say woolly. But now, as I tell you, I have determined15 to take right hold for myself; to look right into European life, and judge it without Johnsonian prejudices. I have taken up my residence in a French family, in a real Parisian house. You see I have the courage of my opinions; I don’t shrink from carrying out my theory that the great thing is to live.
You know I have always been intensely interested in Balzac, who never shrank from the reality, and whose almost lurid16 pictures of Parisian life have often haunted me in my wanderings through the old wicked-looking streets on the other side of the river. I am only sorry that my new friends—my French family—do not live in the old city—au coeur du vieux Paris, as they say here. They live only in the Boulevard Haussman, which is less picturesque17; but in spite of this they have a great deal of the Balzac tone. Madame de Maisonrouge belongs to one of the oldest and proudest families in France; but she has had reverses which have compelled her to open an establishment in which a limited number of travellers, who are weary of the beaten track, who have the sense of local colour—she explains it herself; she expresses it so well—in short, to open a sort of boarding-house. I don’t see why I should not, after all, use that expression, for it is the correlative of the term pension bourgeoise, employed by Balzac in the Père Goriot. Do you remember the pension bourgeoise of Madame Vauquer née de Conflans? But this establishment is not at all like that: and indeed it is not at all bourgeois18; there is something distinguished19, something aristocratic, about it. The Pension Vauquer was dark, brown, sordid20, graisseuse; but this is in quite a different tone, with high, clear, lightly-draped windows, tender, subtle, almost morbid21, colours, and furniture in elegant, studied, reed-like lines. Madame de Maisonrouge reminds me of Madame Hulot—do you remember “la belle22 Madame Hulot?”—in Les Barents Pauvres. She has a great charm; a little artificial, a little fatigued23, with a little suggestion of hidden things in her life; but I have always been sensitive to the charm of fatigue24, of duplicity.
I am rather disappointed, I confess, in the society I find here; it is not so local, so characteristic, as I could have desired. Indeed, to tell the truth, it is not local at all; but, on the other hand, it is cosmopolitan25, and there is a great advantage in that. We are French, we are English, we are American, we are German; and, I believe, there are some Russians and Hungarians expected. I am much interested in the study of national types; in comparing, contrasting, seizing the strong points, the weak points, the point of view of each. It is interesting to shift one’s point of view—to enter into strange, exotic ways of looking at life.
The American types here are not, I am sorry to say, so interesting as they might be, and, excepting myself; are exclusively feminine. We are thin, my dear Harvard; we are pale, we are sharp. There is something meagre about us; our line is wanting in roundness, our composition in richness. We lack temperament; we don’t know how to live; nous ne savons pas vivre, as they say here. The American temperament is represented (putting myself aside, and I often think that my temperament is not at all American) by a young girl and her mother, and another young girl without her mother—without her mother or any attendant or appendage26 whatever. These young girls are rather curious types; they have a certain interest, they have a certain grace, but they are disappointing too; they don’t go far; they don’t keep all they promise; they don’t satisfy the imagination. They are cold, slim, sexless; the physique is not generous, not abundant; it is only the drapery, the skirts and furbelows (that is, I mean in the young lady who has her mother) that are abundant. They are very different: one of them all elegance27, all expensiveness, with an air of high fashion, from New York; the other a plain, pure, clear-eyed, straight-waisted, straight-stepping maiden28 from the heart of New England. And yet they are very much alike too—more alike than they would care to think themselves for they eye each other with cold, mistrustful, deprecating looks. They are both specimens29 of the emancipated30 young American girl—practical, positive, passionless, subtle, and knowing, as you please, either too much or too little. And yet, as I say, they have a certain stamp, a certain grace; I like to talk with them, to study them.
The fair New Yorker is, sometimes, very amusing; she asks me if every one in Boston talks like me—if every one is as “intellectual” as your poor correspondent. She is for ever throwing Boston up at me; I can’t get rid of Boston. The other one rubs it into me too; but in a different way; she seems to feel about it as a good Mahommedan feels toward Mecca, and regards it as a kind of focus of light for the whole human race. Poor little Boston, what nonsense is talked in thy name! But this New England maiden is, in her way, a strange type: she is travelling all over Europe alone—“to see it,” she says, “for herself.” For herself! What can that stiff slim self of hers do with such sights, such visions! She looks at everything, goes everywhere, passes her way, with her clear quiet eyes wide open; skirting the edge of obscene abysses without suspecting them; pushing through brambles without tearing her robe; exciting, without knowing it, the most injurious suspicions; and always holding her course, passionless, stainless31, fearless, charmless! It is a little figure in which, after all, if you can get the right point of view, there is something rather striking.
By way of contrast, there is a lovely English girl, with eyes as shy as violets, and a voice as sweet! She has a sweet Gainsborough head, and a great Gainsborough hat, with a mighty32 plume33 in front of it, which makes a shadow over her quiet English eyes. Then she has a sage-green robe, “mystic, wonderful,” all embroidered34 with subtle devices and flowers, and birds of tender tint35; very straight and tight in front, and adorned36 behind, along the spine37, with large, strange, iridescent38 buttons. The revival39 of taste, of the sense of beauty, in England, interests me deeply; what is there in a simple row of spinal40 buttons to make one dream—to donnor à rêver, as they say here? I think that a great æsthetic renascence is at hand, and that a great light will be kindled41 in England, for all the world to see. There are spirits there that I should like to commune with; I think they would understand me.
This gracious English maiden, with her clinging robes, her amulets42 and girdles, with something quaint8 and angular in her step, her carriage something mediæval and Gothic, in the details of her person and dress, this lovely Evelyn Vane (isn’t it a beautiful name?) is deeply, delightfully43 picturesque. She is much a woman—elle est bien femme, as they say here; simpler, softer, rounder, richer than the young girls I spoke44 of just now. Not much talk—a great, sweet silence. Then the violet eye—the very eye itself seems to blush; the great shadowy hat, making the brow so quiet; the strange, clinging, clutching, pictured raiment! As I say, it is a very gracious, tender type. She has her brother with her, who is a beautiful, fair-haired, gray-eyed young Englishman. He is purely45 objective; and he, too, is very plastic.
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1
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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2
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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8
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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9
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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sensuously
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| adv.感觉上 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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appendage
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| n.附加物 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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29
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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30
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stainless
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| adj.无瑕疵的，不锈的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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34
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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35
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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spinal
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| adj.针的，尖刺的，尖刺状突起的；adj.脊骨的，脊髓的 | |
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41
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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42
amulets
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| n.护身符( amulet的名词复数 ) | |
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43
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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44
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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45
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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