I was shocked this morning when I saw in my newspaper a paragraph announcing his sudden death. I do not say that the shock was very disagreeable. One reads a newspaper for the sake of news. Had I never met James Pethel, belike I should never have heard of him: and my knowledge of his […]

I unpacked my things and went down to await luncheon. It was good to be here again in this little old sleepy hostel by the sea. Hostel I say, though it spelt itself without an “s” and even placed a circumflex above the “o.” It made no other pretension. It was very cozy indeed. I […]

Say, shall these things be forgotten In the Row that men call Rotten, Beauty Clare?–Hamilton Aide. ‘History,’ it has been said, ‘does not repeat itself. The historians repeat one another.’ Now, there are still some periods with which no historian has grappled, and, strangely enough, the period that most greatly fascinates me is one of […]

They say that when King George was dying, a special form of prayer for his recovery, composed by one of the Archbishops, was read aloud to him and that His Majesty, after saying Amen ‘thrice, with great fervour,’ begged that his thanks might be conveyed to its author. To the student of royalty in modern […]

How very delightful Grego’s drawings are! For all their mad perspective and crude colour, they have indeed the sentiment of style, and they reveal, with surer delicacy than does any other record, the spirit of Mr. Brummell’s day. Grego guides me, as Virgil Dante, through all the mysteries of that other world. He shows me […]

I first saw him one morning of last summer, in the Green Park. Though short, even insignificant, in stature and with an obvious tendency to be obese, he had that unruffled, Olympian air, which is so sure a sign of the Blood Royal. In a suit of white linen he looked serenely cool, despite the […]

Nay, but it is useless to protest. Artifice must queen it once more in the town, and so, if there be any whose hearts chafe at her return, let them not say, ‘We have come into evil times,’ and be all for resistance, reformation, or angry cavilling. For did the king’s sceptre send the sea […]

Even now Bath glories in his legend, not idly, for he was the most fantastic animal that ever stepped upon her pavement. Were ever a statue given him (and indeed he is worthy of a grotesque in marble), it would be put in Pulteney Street or the Circus. I know that the palm trees of […]

In the year of grace 1890, and in the beautiful autumn of that year, I was a freshman at Oxford. I remember how my tutor asked me what lectures I wished to attend, and how he laughed when I said that I wished to attend the lectures of Mr. Walter Pater. Also I remember how, […]

A PAINTING BY GEORGE MORLAND, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION Never, I suppose, was a painter less maladif in his work than Morland, that lover of simple and sun-bright English scenes. Probably, this picture of his is all cheerful in intention. Yet the effect of it is saddening. Superficially, the scene is cheerful enough. Our […]

It is not among the cardboard glades of the King’s Theatre, nor, indeed, behind any footlights, but in a real and twilit garden that Grisi, gimp-waisted sylphid, here skips for posterity. To her right, the roses on the trellis are not paper roses–one guesses them quite fragrant. And that is a real lake in the […]

What monster have we here? Who is he that sprawls thus, ventrirotund, against the huge oozing wine-skin? Wide his nose, narrowly-slit his eyes, and with little teeth he smiles at us through a beard of bright russet–a beard soft as the russet coat of a squirrel, and sprouting in several tiers according to the several […]

Over them, ever over them, floats the Blue Bird; and they, the ennuye’es and the ennuyants, the ennuyantes and the ennuye’s, these Parisians of 1830, are lolling in a charmed, charming circle, whilst two of their order, the young Duc de Belhabit et Profil-Perdu with the girl to whom he has but recently been married, […]

A PAINTING BY COROT, IN THE HERTFORD HOUSE COLLECTION Look! Across the plain yonder, those three figures, dark and gaunt against the sky…. Who are they? What are they? One of them is pointing with rigid arm towards the gnarled trees that from the hillside stretch out their storm-broken boughs and ragged leaves against the […]

A PAINTING BY RUBENS, IN THE PRADO Here they are met. Here, by the balustrade, these lords and lusty ladies are met to romp and wanton in the fulness of love, under the solstice of a noon in midsummer. Water gushes in fantastic arcs from the grotto, making a cold music to the emblazoned air, […]

PAUVRETTE! no wonder she is startled. All came on her so suddenly. A moment since, she was alone on this island. Theseus had left her. Her lover had crept from her couch as she lay sleeping, and had sailed away with his comrades, noiselessly, before the sun rose and woke her. >From the top of […]

A PAINTING BY GIOVANNI BELLINI, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY `Credo in Dominum’ were the words this monk wrote in the dust of the high-road, as he lay a-dying there of Cavina’s dagger; and they, according to the Dominican record, were presently washed away by his own blood–`rapida profusio sui sanguinis delevit professionem suoe fidei.’ Yet […]

When a `sensational’ case is being tried, the court is well filled by lay persons in need of a thrill. Their presence seems to be rather resented as a note of frivolity, a discord in the solemnity of the function, even a possible distraction for the judge and jury. I am not a lawyer, nor […]

“HARLEQUIN”: A SIGN-BOARD, PAINTED ON COPPER, SIGNED ‘W. EVANS, LONDON’ CIRCA 1820 Harlequin dances, and, over the park he dances in, surely there is thunder brooding. His figure stands out, bright, large, and fantastic. But all around him is sultry twilight, and the clouds, pregnant with thunder, lower over him as he dances, and the […]

Belike, returning from a long pilgrimage, in which you have seen many strange men and strange cities, and have had your imagination stirred by marvellous experiences, you have never, at the very end of your journey, almost in sight of your home, felt suddenly that all you had been seeing and learning was as naught–a […]