University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD He was able also to enjoy the f uu of the title. Three months later, in April, 1894, the first volume of The Yellow Book made its appearance with Henry Harland as its Literary Editor, with Aubrey Beardsley as the Editor of its Black and White work. The Yellow Book ' s success was quite un- precedented; it was too, quite unforseen. The laughing quarterly, its lance raised became the fashion in fastidious London, became 2. furore. No one, old or young, no one v ith the slightest claim to artis- tic achievement, but chose to make his bow in its pages with the very best he had to offer. One should look down the list of The Yellow Book ' s contributors during the three years of its existence; one should see how old reputations were there re- vived or confirmed; and how new names sprang to notice, made fame for themselves in its pages and won there their spurs. The setting proved so dis- tinguished a one that the attention giv- en to the work because of its setting was tremendous. To be brief, Henry Harland, Aubrey Beardsley, became (to their surprise,) the very lions of the hour, while their Quarterly was to be found on every smart drawing-room table in London. Yet to the credit of both men and though each man did enjoy, hugely, his success and the success of the darling adventure, each was too thorough an artist to be drawn far from work which was his justification for being. Thus, The Yellow Book continued to be the vogue when, in January 1897, in conse- quence of the Literary Editor ' s failing health the publication cea ' -ed, having gallantly served its purpose and the needs of its day. The following incomplete list of a small portion of the literary contributors to The Yellow Book, may be of interest to those who care about such things. It is a remarkable list for any Magazine, particularly a short lived one. The Yellow Dwarf, ' ' who was Henry Harland in disguise, showing his teeth, mocking, ironic, to the foes of fine art in letters; Kenneth Grahame, William Watson, Mrs. Meynell, Cunningham Graham, John Davidson, Ella D ' Arcy, The Honourable Maurice Baring, Fran- cis Thompson, Sir Frank Swettenham, Henry Harland, Edmund Gosse, Henry James, Max Beerbohm, R. de Coutans, Henry E. Nevinson, John Oliver Robbes , Dauphin Meunier,Hammerton, Anatole France, George Moore, Mrs. Dearmer, Oswald Sickert, Evelyn Sharp, Arthur Symonds, Money Coutts, Mrs. Montague Crackanthorpe, Leila Mac- donald, E.Nesbit, Richard Le Galiienne, Stanley Makower, Arthur Waugh, Hubert Crackanthorpe, Mrs. Murray Hickson, Mrs. Clifford, E- Arnold Ben- nett, Nora Hopper, E. Saintsbury, etc., etc. The Black and White Artists were: Aubrey Beardsley, Stetr, Guthrie, Wal- ter Sickert, Paten Willson, Charles Con- der, Alfred Thornton, Anning Bell, Ethel Reed, the Glasgow School of Black and White men, Lavery, Joseph Pen- nell, etc., etc.

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THE REDWOOD position of the astronomer alone on his tower; not an eye to see but his own. . . . Ho! for an eye, or an ear — and for an outlet through which the world cou ' id be made beneficiary of this artistic impulse, this vision of beauty of the day! That wish had long held sweet private sessions in Henry Har- land ' s thoughts. He was himself a leader, he was himself a watcher of the skies — and he dreamed of a suitable Magazine vN-hence the fine work might be seen and be appreciated. One foggy New Year ' s afternoon a little luncheon party had gathered at the Harlands ' . It numbered among its guests Mr. Aubrey Beardsk;y, destined soon to become the modern Hogarth, but, at that time a man almost unknown. The talk fell of course upon the idea uppermost in Harland ' s mind: The founding of a new English Quarterly, where Letters, where Black and White Art might enter into their own. Aubrey Beardsley was a lad of twenty then — a poet in his work. He had the sense of design and of beautiful line to the ends of his fingers. He died, alas, at the age of twenty-four. But he died a Catholic and he lived to found a school of Black and White Art. He laughed at vice, he hated it, and like Hogarth, exposed it; maliciously, with his tongue in his cheek. But his malice was the malice of genius; bis wit found expression in the persiflage of hidden vices, in line, and in the color hidden in the juxtaposition of Black and White. Aubrey Beardsley ' s art has found many imitators but no one has ever yet approached him either in creative quality or in the beauty and fineness and wit of his execution. But to return to the incipient Quarterly. Young Beardsley responded with gusto to Harland ' s suggestions. ' ' Quand on est jeune o?i va vite en besogne, says the French proverb, and not a moment was lost. There and then, both artists plunged into the practical consideration of detail incident to the proposed publi- cation. Books from the study, brought into the gay pink drawing-room with its Persian carpets, its pictures and its old furniture, were called in consultation; new or rare editions were studied, were discarded, — for a hint, for a suggestion. As a mere piece of bookmaking the Quarterly must be on a par, too, with the quality, the artistic virtue of its pages. What title should one give to so great, so splendid a venture? A daring, fetching title! A title that should, laughing, win in the fight against oppos- ing forces; those solemn forces, those principalities and powers of suspicious dullness, in a blinking world. The frolic of the hour inspired Beardsley, who proposed: The Yellow Book. This title, its appositeness and humour, struck all the young contingent and it was decided to cling to it until a better one was found. But the next business, less easy, was to get a Publisher. Yet to his honor be it declared, Mr. John L,ane had the wisdom and enterprise to see his oppor- tunity, which a few days later came to him in the plan for the New Quarterly.

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THE REDWOOD IV The Yellow Book ' s brilliant and neces- sary career came to an end in 1897, and in the Spring of 1898 Mr. John Lane published The Cardinal ' s Sfiuff Box. This most gay and exquisite of Ro- mances, was written through a mon- strous dark and dour and sour London winter, a malignant one of the sort we are all sadly familiar with. Wh en the last proof sheets were passed Henry Harland fell grievously ill. Several months later, during his convalescence, he went to renew his health in Italy, if this were possible; and he did mend it there, thanks to an entire summer spent among the Italian Lakes. But a little before the inception of The CardinaVs Snuff Box, both Mr. and Mrs. Harland had been received into the Catholic Church. One had rather not try even, to narrate the facts which preceded this fortunate event; except to say that Henry Harland had, in spirit, been of the True Faith for many years. He was what is called ' ' an intellectually convinced Catholic . He had the metaphysical mind. Their in- struction by the Reverend Father Charnley, S. J., did not draw out points of argument or of difEculty on Henry Harland ' s side, because, evidently, he was already enlightened and convinced regarding the Dogma of Holy Mother Church. The Lady Paramou?it followed The CardinaVs Snuff Box towards the Spring of 1902. The novel was begun in London; but a good portion of The Lady Paramount was written at beauti- ful suggestive Versailles and in Paris. Its author had long been acknowledged a master of the form fiction and a Styl- ist; yet he managed in this book to surpa.ss, somehow, bis reputation. The style of The Lady Paramount is, it has been often declared, simply inimitable. The grace, buoyancy, mirth, irresponsi- bility, wit with which its pages teem, — and they do lightly play upon eternal verities, — make it distinctly Henry Harland ' s chef d ' oeuvre. This novel i.s creative, it belongs to a high order of creative work; and if John Oliver Hobbes, in her review of it, likens it to a Shakespearean Comedy, we should prefer simply to state that it is Harland ' s art at its highest ebullition of genius; the book is quite unique, unparalleled in English prose. My Friend I rospero ran through McClure ' s Magazine in 1903 and the volume was published in the Spring of 1904. American readers may be inter- ested to know that the finishing touches were put to the last half of Prospero iu New England; at that same vSentry Hill, his family home, which Harland and his wife re-visited after eighteen years of absence And My Friend Prospero was not the only thing of beauty which sprang from the visit, for Henry Harland and his wife took a very great delight in superintending improvements upon their picturesque old place. The ancient stone terraces were reset; the lawns rolled and trimmed, the grounds extended, the gardens enlarged. They left it, beauti- fied and improved and scarcelj ' recog- nizable; it stands now, as gracious and