The Contributors' Club

HAS any one ever noted that there is a far greater fondness in England for French words and phrases than there is in America ? Whether I am the discoverer or not, the fact seems to me to be beyond question. In the new grand hotel in London, which is supposed to be managed on the American plan, — more or less, — but which has a name borrowed from Paris, the very gorgeous dining-room is labeled “ Salle à Manger.”In another English hotel, I saw a sign on what we call the “ elevator,” and the English, with greater simplicity, term a “lift,” declaring it to be an ascenseur. The portable fire-extinguisher familiar to all Americans as a “ Babcock ” is in England called an extincteur. On the programmes of the itinerant opera company managed by Mr. Mapleson. and called, comically enough, “Her Majesty’s Opera,” the wig-maker and costumer appear as the perruquier and the costumier. But on the stage, or rather in writings for and of and about the stage, there is an enormous consumption of French phrases, or of phrases fondly supposed to he French. The dramatic critic is wont to refer to the rentrée of an old favorite when he means his or her reappearance ; and he comments on the skillful way in which M. Sardou brings about Ins dénoûment, — and for this there is perhaps some excuse, as there is no English word which is the exact technical equivalent of dénoûment. But he condemns the dramatist for the use of double entendre, not knowing that there is no such phrase in French, and that its apparent progenitor, double entente, means only a double meaning ; and he speaks of an artiste attempting a new rôle with the view of enlarging bee répertoire, when he means that the artist (for an actress or a singer is an artist, and not an artiste) will add a new part to her repertory. The musical critic is not content with artiste, which be seemingly takes for the French feminine of artist, but he must needs talk of the new pianiste from the Paris Conservatoire, when he means a pianist from the Paris Conservatory. Pianiste is also supposed to be a French feminine for pianist, although this last summer, at Saratoga, I saw an advertisement of a strolling concert company, which declared a certain performer to be “ the greatest living lady pianiste in the world ” ! But nothing surpasses the following advertisement, cut from one of the theatrical trade-journals a year or two ago. I give it here as it stood, changing only the proper names : —

ANNIE BLACK,

The popular favorite and Leading Lady of— Theatre Comique, will be at liberty after June to engage for the season of ‘81-82, as Leading Lady with first-class comb. Also

E. J. BLACK,

(Née EDWARD BROWN,)

CHARACTER ACTOR.

Please read this carefully, and note the delightfully inappropriate use of née, and the purely professional cutting short into “ comb.” of the word “ combination,” technically applied to strolling companies. Above all, pray remark the fact that the gray mare is the better horse, and that the man has given up his own name for his wife’s.

—That that new penmanship method can be depended upon, every time, to take the character all out of the student’s handwriting is a thing which the printed fac-simile specimens have long ago proved, to the satisfaction of the very last doubter. But what I want to know is, Does it take the character out of the student himself, at the same time ? I should think it must be so ; but here we have ouly a sort of inferential, circumstantial evidence, not proof : to wit, the published portraits of the successful students are characterless, every time. But were they so before they meddled with that penmanship method ? That, you see, is the vital question. For, if these poor people were characterless before, my suspicion falls to the ground ; but if they were not, my suspicion is confirmed. So, what I am coming at is this : to ask, in the interest of science, that whenever, hereafter, the “ Compendium” people print their usual monthly batch of fac-simile signatures, labeled, “ Before practicing the system ” and “After practicing the system,” they put, along with the portrait of the successful student, another portrait, showing what he was like “ before practicing the system.”

— I took a drive one October afternoon, which I remember not only for the beauty of the landscape, but for the changes it underwent in the space of a couple of hours. The road was an ordinary turnpike, running along past homely, pleasant farms, with white dwelling-houses — comfortable, if not. specially picturesque — and old-fashioned, spacious, red-painted barns and out-houses. The air was mild, but deliciously fresh, the sky one clear sapphire, and a brisk breeze went rustling through the yellow maples, and dropping the leaves lightly on the piles of red fruit under the appletrees. Golden-rod and purple aster were almost gone, but the flame of the Virginia creeper ran over the stone walls and climbed to the tops of the dark spruces and cedars, and even the little common weeds by the way seemed turned by the rich light into things of beauty. There was a wonderful sense of cheer in the look of the world that afternoon ; her year’s work was done, and the earth was enjoying her ease, at rest, yet full of hopeful life. By and by I turned off from this highroad at a right angle, left the upland country behind, and dipped down through a crosstrack facing toward the river, where the light only dimly filtered through the close shade. For nearly a mile the road continues to plunge down through a piece of genuine woodland, full of the scent of moist mosses and ferns and other thick-growing greenery. Then it emerges from this cool, dusk region, and passes the old place known as the Danskammer, the name in full being Teufel’s Tanz-kammer. I don’t know whether beautiful spots like this were given over to the devil as a sort of propitiatory offering, in old times, when people were more afraid of him than they are now, or whether he was supposed to have selected them for himself ; if so, he had very good taste. The house, invisible through the trees, stands right above the river, on a broad, level plateau, where no doubt the witches danced when the nights were fine, — or did they prefer them dark ? If the devil was present, did he play partner, turn and turn about, with the witches, or did he only look on in a superior fashion at their festive performances ? When once fairly out of the woods, you find yourself down on the river-level, with nothing to intercept the view. Some five or six miles below, the stream expands into a broad bay, so closed in by a bend in the river’s course and by the hills at the south as to have the appearance of a lake. This afternoon that lam telling of,river and hills retreated to indefinite distances in the pearly haze ; the familiar hills lay sleeping, miles away, while below it was not the river-bay I saw, but some vague, faroff, unknown sea. It was one of Nature’s pleasant little wiles; she has a wonderful way of managing her materials to produce her infinitely varied effects. Even when one has learned not to be surprised by them, one enjoys them all the same. I was not at the end of them that afternoon, for after a time, while driving on, quietly admiring this soft and tranquil scene, a big dark cloud rose suddenly, as it seemed, out of the west, and where I had not been looking; almost in a moment the whole picture changed: the dim sea disappeared, and the shadow on the water turned it dark and cold ; the haze vanished from the dreamy distant hills, and they came forward to the river-bank, erect and bold, and closed the view up with a frowning wall. I think I never saw a more curious transformation scene. The storm-cloud after all was only an empty threat, for early in the evening the moon came up over the hills into a perfectly clear heaven, and flooded the whole night world with light.

—Any one ambitious of producing a work of fiction has only to read the newspapers to find in their columns the most thrilling plots, which, with due expansion, can be developed into novels quite as good as those of Miss Braddon or Mr. Wilkie Collins. This, at least, is what one is given to understand by the newspapers themselves, in which it is no rare thing to see a quarter of a column, or so, headed " A Ready-Made Novel” or “Stranger than Fiction,” which we are assured is as wonderful as anything the ingenious authors before named have done in devising strange complications of human affairs.

When I was young, and my first great work of fiction was in view, — a point at which it has persistently remained,— I made an extensive collection of clippings of this sort, believing that they would at least stimulate a laggard imagination. I must confess that I have found this method of writing fiction a failure. I have tried the excerpts for novels and for plays, but have never got a satisfactory plot out of them. They have retained, through all processes of literary treatment, a certain inherent journalistic stamp, which somehow has been fatal to my story. I have thus come to disbelieve in the “ ready-made novels ” of the newspapers, and to think that a narrative of fact, however curious it may be, is of little help, except for the germ it may contain, unless it is translated and reshaped by the imagination. Miss Braddon and Mr. Collins do not owe their success to the reporter ; and no one can think for a moment that newspaper clippings have substantially helped the author of The Cloister and the Hearth. Nevertheless, it is Mr. Charles Reade’s hobby to preach the utility of the hard, unrounded fact as a potent ingredient of fiction ; and it is his delight to confound the critics of any seeming improbability in his stories with a reference to some occurrence in “ real life,” of which he has an account, carefully preserved with clove-scented gum tragacauth in a scrapbook.

A newspaper correspondent has recently forced the door of Mr. Reade’s study, and we are shown a wonderful collection of scrap-books, indexed and cross-indexed, which contain clippings from hundreds of journals, and which have cost no end of trouble. Mr. Reade, the correspondent tells us, looks at this part of his library rather sadly, and has misgivings as to whether he will ever be repaid for the pains he has been at in forming it. But has he not been repaid for it already ? Has be not discomfited many a critic by citations from these chronicles of the hour? Has he not often found Fact a muscular defender of the maid Imagination? He certainly has no occasion to repine, and his very latest story is a vindication of the utility of scrap-books. Singleheart and Doubleface is a charming story, told in the simple Anglo-Saxon way, of which Mr. Reade is almost as great a master as Fielding and Thackeray. It has a special attraction for Americans, as some of the scenes are in America. Mr. Reade has not been in this country, we believe, though an affectionate welcome awaits him, should he ever come ; but he has so many friends here, and the large circulation of his books has brought him into such intimate relations with American publishers, that he ought to have a pretty good idea of how we look and what we are. It is evident, however, that, instead of trusting to himself for the local color of his American scenes, he has been to his scrap-books for it; and on this supposition alone can we account for the remarkable verisimilitude with which he describes New York. The heroine of the narrative is forsaken by her besotted husband, who robs her of all the money she has, and leaves her with their child as soon as they land from a Liverpool steamer. She stores her trunks in the custom-house, that institution evidently being, according to Mr. Reade’s scrap-books, on one of the North River piers : and from it she walks to One Hundred and Fourth Street, which we are led to imagine is in the same neighborhood. On the way her child becomes hungry, and she instantly feeds it with pie ; for of what other nutriment could she think, what other nutriment could she readily find in New York than that indigestible article of national diet ? The forlorn stranger in the streets of the metropolis is overcome by hunger, and, looking for succor, immediately discovers a pie-shop, with its stock of “ apple, mince, and custard.” She also makes the acquaintance of a custom-house officer, “a tall, gaunt citizen of Illinois,” named Solomon B. Grace ; and the portraiture of this official is so natural that any one who has landed from a foreign steamer in New York will instantly recognize it. Mr. Grace talks like Sara Slick. “ Wa’al,” he says to his lady-love, —and he also says “ wa’al ” every time he opens his mouth, — “ wa’al, ye see, I don’t want no fuss. Now, there’s somebody in that house that riles me. He ’s got a good thing, and he doesn’t vally it.” This, it will be noticed, is eminently characteristic of the speech of the gentlemen who take account of dutiable articles on the incoming steamers, as also is the use of that very common American expletive, “ I swan ! ” “ I ’m pacific,” says Mr. Grace, when he is satisfied ; and when his heart is touched, he uses the racy and familiar idiom, “ You ’ll make me cry enough to wash a palace car.”

The heroine recovers her money from her thriftless husband, and starts from One Hundred and Fourth Street to the custom-house, which, “ to her surprise ” (and to ours), “ is very near.” There she once more meets Solomon B., and when she informs him that she is about to return to England he orders “his mate ” to stow her things away in the cabin of the steamer, which is moored to the custom-house steps in Wall Street.

Mr. Reade has stated that he reads one hundred books to write one, and it is not surprising that, with the aid of his scrap-books, he should he accurate. But will he kindly take our word for it when we assure him that the city hall is not at Corlcar’s Hook, that the establishment of Messrs. Harper and Brothers is not at Gowanus, and that Bowling Green is not in Central Park?

— Mr. Matthew Arnold not long ago, and Mr. Edward A. Freeman more recently, have been freeing their minds about America, or rather about these United States. They have joined themselves to the noble army of Englishmen who have already said their say about this unfortunate country, and its still more unfortunate inhabitants. Englishmen who have crossed the Atlantic, and “stopped” in America over night, and Englishmen who have stayed at home snugly by their sea-coal fire, arc alike ready to set forth their condescending opinions of American manners, American customs, American food, American horses, American books, American men, American women, and American children. American civilization, such as it is, has been talked about by numberless English critics, such as they are. And yet, in spite of this enormous expenditure of ink, it seems to me that one easy and accurate standard of comparison between the two countries has not yet received the attention it deserves. This standard is the relative frequency and excellence of the index. As a test of the highest civilization the index is unsurpassed. The country in which the most and best indexes are provided to aid the special student and the general reader is the country in which the play of intellect is the freest and most active ; it is the country in which there is the highest civilization. Accept this test for a moment, and let us apply it to Great Britain and the United States. The leading American magazines publish elaborate indexes to the wealth of literary and historical matter contained in their files, and these indexes are revised and enlarged at intervals, as the magazine grows in years, and has a greater number of “ back numbers ” behind it. On the other hand, no English magazine or review has published an index for years. The original attempt to cover all contemporary periodical literature was made many years ago by an American ; and the later and more elaborate Poole’s Index of to - day is an American undertaking. It is true that there is an Index Society in England, and that there is none in America ; but the English society owes much of its support to Americans, who form a goodly portion of its members, and do a very considerable proportion of its work. Then, the Index Society, admirable as it is in intention, is not so admirable in its management. Actually, it wasted its time and its money in putting forth an index to Mr. Trevelyan’s Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, — a task which belonged to the author and the publisher, and which it was simply shameful in them to neglect. This brings us to note the infrequency of indexes in English books, even in books which cry aloud for them. Carlyle’s Reminiscences, for instance, with its mass of personal allusions and reflections, was issued in England without an index. The American publishers added one at once. Mrs. Kemble’s Old Woman’s Gossip, with its fund of delightful anecdote, appeared in England as Records of a Girlhood, and with no clew whatever to the proper names which filled its entertaining pages ; the American publisher supplied an index. Not only are English indexes few in number, but they are often inferior in merit. So poor was the English index of an English book, of which a New York publisher had purchased the plates a year or two ago, that he was compelled to recall the edition he had printed from these plates, and to make an index less ludicrous.

It is from England that we have taken the present fancy for series of books on kindred subjects. A set of English Men of Letters has called forth a set of American Men of Letters. Now in the books of none of the important English series is there an index : in no one of the volumes of Ancient Classics for English Readers (the original of all the series, if I mistake not), nor in Foreign Classics for English Readers, nor in Classical Writers, nor in English Men of Letters, will you find any sign of an index. Turn to the various American series, and see the difference. Every volume of Mr. Laurence Hutton’s American Actor series has an index, containing, often, information not in the book itself, and made only at the cost of much toil. Every volume of the Scribners’ Campaigns of the Civil War has an ample index. Every volume but one of American Men of Letters is superior to its English namesake in this final test of a more active reading public. If we leave indexes in books to consider the books which are indexes, I think the advantage is still with these States. The Dickens Dictionary — an index to the characters of an English novelist — is an American work ; so is the Waverley Dictionary ; so, of course, is the Hawthorne Index. In general, American books of reference are better than English ; they are at once simpler, fuller, and more exact. Errors enough have been pointed out in Mr. Allibone’s Dictionary of Authors, and in the forty mismade indexes appended to it; but it remains a monument to American industry, and to the American demand for a guide through the labyrinths of literature.