WALT WHITMAN

The Pagan Review

The brilliant summer was followed by a damp and foggy autumn. My husband’s depression increased with the varying of the year. While I was on a visit to my mother he wrote to me, after seeing me in the morning:

Grosvenor Club, Nov. 9th, 1891.

His health was so seriously affected by the fogs that it became imperative that he should get into purer air so he decided to fulfil his intention of going to New York even though he had been forced to relinquish all ideas of lecturing. There were various publishing matters to attend to, and many friends to visit. In a letter to Mrs. Janvier, announcing his projected visit, he tells her of the particular work he had on hand:

“You will be the first to hear my new imaginative work. Although in a new method, it is inherently more akin to “Romantic Ballads” than to “Sospiri,” but it is intense dramatic prose. There is one in particular I wish to read to you—three weeks from now.” And he adds, “Do you not long for the warm days—for the beautiful living pulsing South? This fierce cold and gloom is mentally benumbing.... Yes you are right: there are few women and perhaps fewer men who have the passion of Beauty—of the thrilling ecstasy of life.”

During his short stay in New York he was made the welcome guest of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Stedman; and he delighted in this opportunity of again meeting his good friends Mr. and Mrs. Richard Stoddart, Mr. Alden, Mr. Howells, etc. But his chief interest was a memorable visit to Walt Whitman, in whose fearless independent, mental outlook, and joy in life, in whose vigorous individual verse, he had found incentive and refreshment. Armed with an introduction from Mr. Stedman he pilgrimaged to Camden, New Jersey, on January 23rd, and found the veteran poet in bed propped up with pillows, very feeble, but bright-eyed and mentally alert. William described the visit in a letter to me:

“During a memorable talk on the literature of the two countries past and to come, the conversation turned upon a vivid episode. ‘That was when you were young?’ I asked. The patriarchal old poet—who lay in his narrow bed, with his white beard, white locks, and ashy-grey face in vague relief, in the afternoon light, against the white pillows and coverlet—looked at me before he answered, with that half audacious, wholly winsome glance so characteristic of him, ‘Now, just you tell me when you think that was!’

“Then, with sudden energy, and without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘Young? I’m as young now as I was then! What’s this grey tangle’ (and as he spoke he gave his straggling beard an impatient toss),’and this decrepit old body got to do with that, eh? I never felt younger, and I’m glad of it—against what’s coming along. That’s the best way to shift camp, eh? That’s what I call Youth!’”

When the younger man bade him farewell Whitman gave him a message to take back with him across the seas. “He said to me with halting breath: ‘William Sharp when you go back to England, tell those friends of whom you have been speaking, and all others whom you may know and I do not that words fail me to express my deep gratitude to them for sympathy and aid truly enough beyond acknowledgment. Good-bye to you and to them—the last greetings of a tired old poet.’”

The impression made on my husband, by the fearless serene attitude of the great poet found expression in the few lines that flashed into his mind, when on March 29th he read in a London evening paper of the death of Walt Whitman:

IN MEMORIAM

He laughed at Life’s Sunset-Gates
With vanishing breath,

Glad soul, who went with the sun
To the Sunrise of death.

While William was in New York Mr. Stedman was asked by Mr. J. W. Young to approach his guest with a request that he should “lecture” at Harvard upon a subject of contemporary Literature. “Quite a number of Harvard men are anxious to see and hear Mr. Sharp if he will consent to come to Cambridge.”

It was with genuine regret that, owing to his doctor’s strict prohibition, William felt himself obliged to refuse this flattering request. He had also been asked by Mr. Palmer “the leading theatrical Boss in the States to sell to him the rights of my play on ‘A Fellowe and his Wife,’” a proposal which he declined.

On his return to England he wrote to Mr. Janvier:

“Dear Old Man,

The immediate outcome of his visit to America was the publication, by Messrs. Chas. Webster & Co., of his Romantic Ballads and Sospiri di Roma in one volume entitled Flower O’ the Vine. It was prefaced by a flattering Introduction by Mr. Janvier, to whom the author wrote in acknowledgment:

Paris, 23d April, 1892.

... Many thanks for your letter, my dear fellow, and for the “Introduction,” which I have just read. I thank you most heartily for what you say there, which seems to me, moreover, if I may say so, at once generous, fittingly reserved, and likely to win attention. You yourself occupy such a high place in Letters oversea that such a recommendation of my verse cannot but result to my weal. I have been so deep in work and engagements, that I have been unable to attend to any correspondence of late—and have, I fear, behaved somewhat churlishly to friends across the water, and particularly to my dear friends at 27th Avenue. But now the pressure of work is over for the moment: my London engagements or their ghosts are vainly calling to me d’Outre-Manche: I am keeping down my too cosmopolitan acquaintanceship in Paris to the narrowest limit: and on and after the second of May am going to reform and remain reformed. If you don’t object to a little “roughing,” you would enjoy being with me and mes camarades this coming week. We like extremes, so after a week or so of the somewhat feverish Bohemianism of literary and artistic Paris, we shall be happy at our ‘gipsy’ encampment in the Forest of Fontainebleau (at a remote and rarely-visited but lovely and romantic spot between the Gorge de Franchard and the Gorge d’Apremont). Spring is now here in all her beauty: and there is a divine shimmer of green everywhere. Paris itself is en fÊte with her vividly emerald limes and sycamores, and the white and red spires of the chestnuts must make the soul of the west wind that is now blowing rejoice with gladness. The Seine itself is of a paler green than usual, and is suggestive of those apple-hued canals and conduits of Flanders and by the ‘dead cities’ of north-east Holland. I forget if you know Paris—but there is one of its many fountains that has an endless charm for me: that across the Seine, between the Quai des Grands Augustins and the Bld. St. Germain—the Fontaine St. Michel—I stood watching the foaming surge and splash of it for some time yesterday, and the pearl-grey and purple-hued doves that flew this way and that through the sunlit spray. It brought, as it always does, many memories of beloved Rome and Italy back to me. I turned—and saw Paul Verlaine beside me: and I was in Paris again, the Paris of Paris, the Aspasia of the cities of the World, the only city whom one loves and worships (and is betrayed by) as a woman. Then I went round to Leon Vanier’s, where there were many of les Jeunes—Jean MorÉas, Maurice BarrÈs, Cazals, Renard, EugÈne Holland, and others (including your namesake, Janvier). To-night I ought to go to the weekly gathering of a large number of les Jeunes at the CafÉ du Soleil d’Or, that favourite meeting place now of les dÉcadents, les symbolistes, and les everything else. But I can’t withstand this flooding sunshine, and sweet wind, and spraying of waters, and toss-toss and shimmer-shimmer of blossoms and leaves; so I’ll probably be off. This won’t be off if I don’t shut up in a double sense.

My love to ‘Kathia’ and to you, dear fellow Pagans.

Ever yours rejoicingly,

William Sharp.

Tell K. that when I have ‘reformed’ I’ll write to her. Don’t let her be impertinent, and say that this promise will be fulfilled ad GrÆcas Kalendas!

P. S. Here are my proposed ‘coming-movements.’

(1) Lill joins me in Paris about 10 days hence, and remains to see the two Salons, etc.

(2) From the middle of May till the middle (14th) of July we shall be in London.

(3) Then Lill goes with friends to Germany, to Bayreuth (for Wagnerian joys) and I go afoot and aboat among the lochs and isles and hills of the western Scottish Highlands.

(4) We meet again in Stirling or Edinburgh, early in August—and then, having purchased or hired a serviceable if not a prancing steed, we go off for three weeks vagabondage. The steed is for Lill and our small baggage and a little tent. We’ll sometimes sleep out: sometimes at inns, or in the fern in Highlander’s cottages. Thereafter I shall again go off by myself to the extreme west “where joy and melancholy are one, and where youth and age are twins” as the Gaelic poet says.

(5) The rest of September visiting in Scotland.

(6) Part of October in London then (O Glad Tidings)

(7) Off for 6 months to the South: first to the Greek side of Sicily: then to Rome (about Xmas) for the Spring. Finally: a Poor-house in London.

The reply came swiftly:

New York, 6: 5: 92.

My dear Sharp,

Your letter of April 3rd is like a stirring fresh wind. The vigour of it is delightful, and a little surprising, considering what you had been about. I will not cast stones at you—and, if you ran on schedule time, you have been reformed for four days. Your announcement that you intend to stay reformed is fine in its way. What a noble imagination you have! I am glad that you tolerate my ‘introduction.’ As Kate wrote you, I was very wretched—unluckily for you—when it was written. I wish that it were better in itself and more worthy of you. But the milk is spilled. The book will look very well, I think.... Your programme for the ensuing year fills me with longing. Even the London poorhouse at the end of it don’t alarm me. Colonel Newcome was brought up in a poorhouse—or a place of that nature; and, even without such a precedent I should be willing to go to a poor-house for a while after such a glorious year. Joy and good luck attend you, my dear fellow, as you go upon your gay way!...

Always yours,

T. A. J.

A Fellowe and his Wife had in the early spring been published in America and England, and also in the Tauchnitz Collection, and had a flattering reception in both countries. It had been preceded in February by the Life and Letters of Joseph Severn published by Messrs. Sampson Low & Co.

Among various articles written during the early summer for the Academy were one on Philip Marston, and one on Maeterlinck; and in the July number of the Forum was an appreciation of Thomas Hardy—to whom he had made a flying visit in March.

In acknowledgment he received the following note from the novelist:

Max Gate, Dorchester,

July, 1892.

My dear Sharp,

It did give me a great deal of pleasure to read the article in the Forum, and what particularly struck me was your power of grasping the characteristics of this district and people in a few hours visit, during which, so far as I could see, you were not observing anything. I wish the execution of the novels better justified the generous view you take.

Yours sincerely,

Thomas Hardy.

Our delightful plans for the autumn were not carried out; for, during a visit to the art critic, J. Stanley Little, at Rudgwick, Sussex, my husband saw a little cottage which attracted him and we decided to take it as a pied-À-terre. Pending negotiations we stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Caird at Northbrook, Micheldever, where W. S. began to plan out the scheme of a new quarterly Review that was “to be the expression of a keen pagan delight in nature.” I quote from his Diary:

Regretfully the wanderings in the Highlands had to be postponed although the projector of the Review went for a time to Loch Goil with a friend and I to Bayreuth. In August we settled in the little eight-roomed cottage, near Rudgwick, with a little porch, an orchard and garden, and small lawn with a chestnut tree in its midst. We remained at Phenice Croft two years and took much pleasure in the little green enclosure that was our own. The views from it were not extensive. A stretch of fields and trees lay in front of the house, and from the side lawn we could see an old mill whose red brick roof had been weathered to picturesque shades of green. Phenice Croft stood at the edge of a little hamlet called Buck’s Green, and across the road from our garden gate stood the one shop flanked by a magnificent poplar tree, that made a landmark however far we might wander. It was a perpetual delight to us. William Sharp settled down at once to the production of his quarterly to be called, finally, The Pagan Review, edited by himself as W. H. Brooks. As he had no contributors, for he realised he would have to attract them, he himself wrote the whole of the Contents under various pseudonyms. It was published on August 15th, 1892; the cover bore the motto “Sic transit gloria Grundi” and this list of contents:

The Editorial announced a promised article on “The New Paganism” from the pen of H. P. SiwÄarmill, but it was never written.

As the Foreword gives an idea, not only of the Editor’s project, but also of his mental attitude at that moment—a sheer revelling in the beauty of objective life and nature, while he rode for a brief time on the crest of the wave of health and exuberant spirits that had come to him in Italy after his long illness and convalescence—I reprint it in its entirety.

“... is not meat

For little people or for fools.”

To quote from Mr. Meredith once more:

“... these things are life:

And life, they say, is worthy of the Muse.”

But we are well aware that this is just what “they” don’t say. “They,” “the general public,” care very little about the “Muse” at all; and the one thing they never advocate or wish is that the “Muse” should be so indiscreet as to really withdraw from life the approved veils of Convention.

Nevertheless, we believe that there is a by no means numerically insignificant public to whom The Pagan Review may appeal; though our paramount difficulty will be to reach those who, owing to various circumstances, are out of the way of hearing aught concerning the most recent developments in the world of letters.

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The Pagan Review conveys, or is meant to convey, a good deal by its title. The new paganism is a potent leaven in the yeast of the “younger generation,” without as yet having gained due recognition, or even any sufficiently apt and modern name, any scientific designation. The “new paganism,” the “modern epicureanism,” and kindred appellations, are more or less misleading. Yet, with most of us, there is a fairly definite idea of what we signify thereby. The religion of our forefathers has not only ceased for us personally, but is no longer in any vital and general sense a sovereign power in the realm. It is still fruitful of vast good, but it is none the less a power that was, rather than a power that is. The ideals of our forefathers are not our ideals, except where the accidents of time and change can work no havoc. A new epoch is about to be inaugurated, is, indeed, in many respects, already begun; a new epoch in civil law, in international comity, in what, vast and complex though the issues be, may be called Human Economy. The long half-acknowledged, half-denied duel between Man and Woman is to cease, neither through the victory of hereditary overlordship nor the triumph of the far more deft and subtle if less potent weapons of the weaker, but through a frank recognition of copartnery. This new comradeship will be not less romantic, less inspiring, less worthy of the chivalrous extremes of life and death, than the old system of overlord and bondager, while it will open perspectives of a new-rejoicing humanity, the most fleeting glimpses of which now make the hearts of true men and women beat with gladness. Far from wishing to disintegrate, degrade, abolish marriage, the “new paganism” would fain see that sexual union become the flower of human life. But, first, the rubbish must be cleared away; the anomalies must be replaced by just inter-relations; the sacredness of the individual must be recognised; and women no longer have to look upon men as usurpers, men no longer to regard women as spiritual foreigners.

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These remarks, however, must not be taken too literally as indicative of the literary aspects of The Pagan Review. Opinions are one thing, the expression of them another, and the transformation or reincarnation of them through indirect presentment another still.

This magazine is to be a purely literary, not a philosophical, partisan, or propagandist periodical. We are concerned here with the new presentment of things rather than with the phenomena of change and growth themselves. Our vocation, in a word, is to give artistic expression to the artistic “inwardness” of the new paganism; and we voluntarily turn aside here from such avocations as chronicling every ebb and flow of thought, speculating upon every fresh surprising derelict upon the ocean of man’s mind, or expounding well or ill the new ethic. If those who sneer at the rallying cry, “Art for Art’s sake,” laugh at our efforts, we are well content; for even the lungs of donkeys are strengthened by much braying. If, on the other hand, those who, by vain pretensions and paradoxical clamour, degrade Art by making her merely the more or less seductive panoply of mental poverty and spiritual barrenness, care to do a grievous wrong by openly and blatantly siding with us, we are still content; for we recognise that spiritual byways and mental sewers relieve the Commonwealth of much that is unseemly and might breed contagion. The Pagan Review, in a word, is to be a mouthpiece—we are genuinely modest enough to disavow the definite article—of the younger generation, of the new pagan sentiment, rather, of the younger generation. In its pages there will be found a free exposition of the myriad aspects of life, in each instance as adequately as possible reflective of the mind and literary temperament of the writer. The pass-phrase of the new paganism is ours: Sic transit gloria Grundi. The supreme interest of Man is—Woman: and the most profound and fascinating problem to Woman is, Man. This being so, and quite unquestionably so with all the male and female pagans of our acquaintance, it is natural that literature dominated by the various forces of the sexual emotion should prevail. Yet, though paramount in attraction, it is, after all, but one among the many motive forces of life; so we will hope not to fall into the error of some of our French confrÈres and be persistently and even supernaturally awake to one functional activity and blind to the general life and interest of the commonwealth of soul and body. It is Life that we preach, if perforce we must be taken as preachers at all; Life to the full, in all its manifestations, in its heights and depths, precious to the uttermost moment, not to be bartered even when maimed and weary. For here, at any rate, we are alive; and then, alas, after all,—

“how few Junes

Will heat our pulses quicker...”

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“Much cry for little wool,” some will exclaim. It may be so. Whenever did a first number of a new magazine fulfil all its editor’s dreams or even intentions? “Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. ‘Tis nater, after all, and what pleases God,” as Mrs. Durbeyfield says in “Tess of the Durbervilles.”

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Have you read that charming roman À quatre, the Croix de Berny? If so, you will recollect the following words of Edgar de Meilhan (alias ThÉophile Gautier), which I (“I” standing for editor, and associates, and pagans in general) now quote for the delectation of all readers, adversely minded or generously inclined, or dubious as to our real intent—with blithe hopes that they may be the happier therefor: “Frankly, I am in earnest this time. Order me a dove-coloured vest, apple-green trousers, a pouch, a crook; in short, the entire outfit of a Lignon Shepherd. I shall have a lamb washed to complete the pastoral.”

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This is “the lamb.”

The Editor.

The Review was well subscribed for, and many letters came to the Editor and his secretary (myself) that were a source of interest and amusement. Mr. Richard Whiteing—who knew the secret of the Editorship wrote: “I want to subscribe to The Pagan Review if you will let me know to whom to send my abonnement for the half year. I think, you know, you will have to put some more clothes on before the end of the year. You are certainly the liveliest and most independent little devil of a review I ever saw in a first number.”

The Editor, however, swiftly realised that there could be no continuance of the Review. Not only could he not repeat such a tour de force, and he realised that for several numbers he would have to provide the larger portion of the material—but the one number had served its purpose, as far as he was concerned for by means of it he had exhausted a transition phase that had passed to give way to the expression of his more permanent self.

To Thomas A. Janvier the Editor wrote:

Rudgwick, Sussex.

Dear Mr. Janvier,

You know you have ...

W. H. Brooks.

Elizabeth A. Brooks was so pleased to receive your letter.

One or two young writers sent in MS. contributions and these of course he had to return. One came from Mr. R. Murray Gilchrist with whom he had come into touch through his editorship of the Literary Chair in Young Folk’s Paper. To him he wrote:

Rudgwick, Sussex, 10: 92.

My dear Sir,

As it is almost certain that for unforeseen private reasons serial publication of The Pagan Review will be held over till sometime in 1893, I regret to have to return your MS. to you. I have read The Noble Courtesan with much interest. It has a quality of suggestiveness that is rare, and I hope that it will be included in the forthcoming volume to which you allude.... It seems to me that the story would be improved by less—or more hidden—emphasis on the mysterious aspect of the woman’s nature. She is too much the “principle of Evil,” the “modern Lilith.” If you do not use it, I might be able—with some alterations of a minor kind—to use it in the P/R when next Spring it reappears—if such is its dubious fate.

Yours very truly,

W. H. Brooks.

P. S. It is possible that you may surmise—or that a common friend may tell you—who the editor of the P/R is: if so, may I ask you to be reticent on the matter.

Phenice Croft, Rudgwick,

22: 10: 92.

Dear Mr. Gilchrist,

Although I do not wish the matter to go further I do not mind so sympathetic and kindly a critic knowing that “W. S.” and “W. H. Brooks” are synonymous.

I read with pleasure your very friendly and cordial article in The Library. By the way, it may interest you to know that the “Rape of the Sabines” and—well, I’ll not say what else!—is also by W. H. Brooks. But this, no outsider knows.... The Pagan Review will be revived next year, but probably as a Quarterly: and I look to you as one of the younger men of notable talent to give a helping hand with your pen.

I suppose you come to London occasionally. I hope when you are next south, you will come and give me the pleasure of your personal acquaintance. I can offer you a lovely country, country fare, a bed, and a cordial welcome.

Yours sincerely,

William Sharp.

Intimation had also to be sent to each subscriber; with it was enclosed a card with the following inscription:

The Pagan Review.

On the 15th September, still-born The Pagan Review.

Regretted by none, save the affectionate parents and a few forlorn friends, The Pagan Review has returned to the void whence it came. The progenitors, more hopeful than reasonable, look for an unglorious but robust resurrection at some more fortunate date. “For of such is the Kingdom of Paganism.”

W. H. Brooks.

And at the little cottage a solemn ceremony took place. The Review was buried in a corner of the garden, with ourselves, my sister-in-law Mary and Mr. Stanley Little as mourners; a framed inscription was put to mark the spot, and remained there until we left Rudgwick.