  It happened that Alexander James was studying at the Museum School. That the son of "the psychologist who made psychology read like a novel" and the nephew of "the novelist who made a novel read like psychology" should have identified Fritz's talent the first crack out of the box was about the least surprising thing in the world. The two young painters proceeded to form an offensive and defensive alliance. Where one was, there was the other also; on the baseball field, on painting expeditions, on pilgrimages in early spring into New Hampshire to climb Chocorua, and on occasional voyages into the land of pretty girls. It was good to see the pair together: two thoroughbreds. Both athletes, both artists, one dark, the other fair, both about the same height and build. People would turn to look after them as they passed with an expression of "Wonder who they are. Somebody out of the ordinary." Alexander was wont to disguise his frank admiration of Fritz behind a smoke screen of banter. This Fritz would suffer with an amused grin and the massive calm of a mastiff, for he had no such arsenal of repartee as this young gentleman from the household of a Harvard professor; but once in a while he would land a retort so neat as to set Alexander spinning. It did not take the Cambridge youth long to discover the use Fritz made of his talent for silence and it was his delight to give him away in his game of holding his tongue the better to use his eyes,—as Alexander said: "the wise old Bruin!" In Massachusetts the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, April 19, is a holiday. It was 1913. In the parlor of an inn whose windows look northward across the snug haven of Rockport to the surf-scoured ledges of Pigeon Cove I was seated at a piano, back to the door, painfully dissecting a score of Tristan. The door opened and a voice exclaimed, "Good Lord!" It was Fritz. With him was Alexander James. Both were half ossified with the chill of the mid-April afternoon, for they had been painting on the shore down towards Straitsmouth. General astonishment. The two expeditions had originated quite independently. It was whimsically like those momentous chance encounters in picturesque spots which abound in the novels of Alexander's uncle Henry; but the novelist, be it noted, doesn't always save these coincidences from a slightly fishy sound which was totally wanting in this. They thawed themselves out and exhibited their sketches. Fritz had, as usual, gone after it and got it—a spirited bit: druidical heaps of pink granite boulders against dashing surf: dazzling white of foam-crest on deep blue. There was a jolly supper in the brown-walled dining room (it had been the kitchen of an eighteenth century farm house) which the last rays of the spring sun flooded with red golden light; the two painters comparing notes on the exhibitions of the Scandinavians and the Ten Americans. They departed for a home-talent play at a local hall in a frame of mind which boded no good for the performance.... About eleven o'clock they breezed in with the announcement that there was a Northwest wind (the New England wind which sweeps the sky cloudless blue), a full moon and a dashing sea; and that to go to bed was a crime. Away, then, for Land's End, along shore paths at the edge of grassy cliffs, by bushy lanes, over meadows, moors, popple beaches and brooks, across the moon-blanched land beside the moon-burnished sea. Straitsmouth Light burned a yellow spark. The twin lights on Thatcher's Island shone weird blue in their tall towers. Low on the rim of sky and sea hung gigantic masses of cloud whitened by the bluish pallor of the moon. In the marsh bottoms frogs cheeped their shrill sweet song of spring: the northwester bellowed through the willow twigs ... mournful pour of surf ... splendor of spring moon ... the lonely moor ... the steadfast light-house flames ... the white walls and gray roofs of the sleeping town.... At one in the morning, tip-toeing into the dining room, we devoured a plate of bread and butter left for late comers. Both of them were too genuine artists to comment on what we had seen. It is a lovely afternoon of June, 1914, at the pier of the Allan Line steamships in Charlestown. The ship is the old Nubian, safe and slow, saloon upholstered in plush of maple sugar brown, brass oil lamps swinging in gimbles as befitted a smart packet of the late 80's. Boston to Glasgow. Scotland swarmed the wharf. Mixed in was an artists' colony. For that was the great day. Fritz and Alexander were sailing for a year's study abroad: London, Paris, Munich. The gang which came to see them off were dramatis personae of Act II of La BohÈme: four painters, an interior decorator, an illustrator assorted scribblers, and a Scottish chieftain (lord of an ancient clan, hero of a hundred skin-of-your-teeth escapes, veteran of Polish revolutionary escapades, uncrowned king of an African tribe: as raconteur he had his rival, Robert Louis Stevenson, lashed to the bed). This day he strode resplendent in plaid knee socks, plaid kilt, a murderous Hieland dirk swung at his hip, short jacket the breast of which blazed with medals, and long black locks caught up under a cap. As he crossed the wharf planking at a stride like deer-stalking over his native crags, the rest of us half expected the assembled Scots to prostrate themselves and knock foreheads on flooring in fealty. He did excite some attention. Sisson said—well, no matter what Sisson said. It was a great occasion. Fritz, his black eyes snapping with excitement, came up the gang plank from deck to wharf to be pounced on by a jolly crew. He was outwardly cool, but his engines were racing. After him came Alexander James. Pounce number two. Showers of rice clattered on a bridal pair close by, but their festival was tame compared to this. To meet Henry James and John Sargent in London: to study in Paris and Munich: to see the great galleries. They were embarking on greater seas than the Atlantic. This was the great day, the great hour, and with a troop of friends rejoicing in their good fortune to sweeten it.... Away to the land of heart's desire.... Romance.... Bohemia.... Europe. "O Youth, and the days that were!" From the caplog at the pier head as the Nubian swung into midstream of the Charles, the band of pariahs bawled ribald farewells and wrung out handkerchiefs in mock tears. Alexander James, the Clive Newcome of the adventure, leaned on the teakwood rail, waving his straw hat; and Fritz, the "J.J." of the story, sat on the lowest ratline of the shrouds, feet on rail, pretending to weep into his hat and then emptying the brine into the brine. The ship's side, black hull and white upperworks, took a burnishing from the late afternoon sun. Under the gaiety there was a queer feeling. There, divided from us by a hundred yards of harbor water, were the two friends with whom we had just shaken hands, and the strip between was widening, would widen to an ocean. They stood out amid the throng of passengers as distinct as though they had been the only souls aboard. They waved: we waved. As the vessel straightened away in her course they imitated our several gestures to signify personal farewells: it was thought and done impromptu. And long after their figures grew indistinct as the ship lessened down the harbor lane between elbowing wharves and the piled masses of city towers and spires, there were gleams of two white straw hats which we knew.... All the same, it was a trifle too much like a dress rehearsal for death. Then, in less than six weeks, a world in tumult. Continental ateliers were emptying their students on the battlefield. Fritz, who was in England, prudently kept out of the rush homeward and made the most of his few weeks. He was in Downing Street in front of that dingy Georgian faÇade the night the British Cabinet sat waiting for Germany's reply to their ultimatum. "It gave one an odd feeling," said he, "to realize that behind those drawn shades sat men who were settling the question of life or death for hundreds of thousands of their fellow creatures. The crowd cheered. I did not." Of Henry James he saw comparatively little, for the novelist was in poor health, but he was immensely stimulated by the little he did see, for beginning with Roderick Hudson he had been quick to discover how much this master of style had to teach a painter of what he had himself learned from painters. There was a memorable session with Mr. Sargent in his London studio. Mr. Sargent happened just then to be doing a portrait of Lord Curzon, and Fritz related with wicked glee (imitating Mr. Sargent as he backed away from his easel) how the painter had remarked: "I have not made up my mind how to finish it. If I can't get enough interest out of the face, I'll put a scarlet coat on him." It was late in October before he sailed for home, as one of a handful of passengers on a freighter. The voyage was one of continuous foul weather which, to the mystification of the others, was vastly to the delight of Fritz. He lived on deck, begrudging time to sleep. He fraternized with the crew. One day of thin drizzle and greasy swells, getting into old togs, he helped the deck-hands greatly to their satisfaction and somewhat to the scandal of the other passengers, shovel coal down a hatch. "They didn't think I'd stick it through," said he. After that he was one of them. |
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