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

Page 27 text:

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

Page 26 text:

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.

Page 28 text:

THE REDWOOD as dignified a memorial of his presence, his passage there, as can well be wished for even in that very lovely part of New England. But to get back to Prospero. The scene is Italy again; Italy, her gifts and her enchantments too boundless not to be untiringly rehearsed, and My Friend Prospero, with its heady aroma of Italy, its paradisaical vistas, its Italian pros- pects, introduces Lady Blanchmain, Prospero, Annunziata, Maria Dolores. These people, — acquaintances of a type far too individual and too inspiriting to be lightly made or forsaken, one has no wish or intention of bidding good-bye to when the last pages are reached They linger beside one — or one goes to find them; like distinguished and sug- gestive friends, they endure, they stimu- late for a lifetime. Those who have read and re-read Henry Harland may perceive that he has delivered his message, neither a solemn nor a severe one. He gave it joyously, as would a herald of good tidings; and with a tender sort of yearn- ing; for that loving grateful heart of his needed to pour a little of its own superabundant vision, of its own over- flowing love and burden of knowledge into every other man ' s mind and heart. He who runs may read it: Harland dreamt of marriage As a High Romance, the highest — if one can be faithful unto death. Yet he knew that the Sacra- ment of Marriage, like those other Sac- raments instituted by Jesus Christ, shall reach perfection, to flower in Paradise as the joy of angels, only through the grace of those Sacraments offered by our Holy Mother Church, built upon a Rock. V Then last of all came The Royal End. It is Henry Harland ' s pen and it chants the same paean of Italy. The same virile, luminous and distinguished mind, so sane, so joyous, disports itself, and, faceted, diamond-like, reflects the bea- tific vision of truth. It is indeed as though Henry Harland were reviewing life and showing it to us, from an alti- tude, from a City built upon a Hill. He presents its proportions with a new, an infinite smiling charity, and an in- dulgence for life ' s adorable follies, child- ish presumptions, self-complaisances, frailties. But ah! Sweet though the weather was, fair though the valley , — and Venice and Florence were so fair to consider and to linger in! The Royal End was Henry Harland ' s last work. He had written this novel iu a vein somewhat difi erent, a more philosophically romantic vein, one may say, than its predecesssors. One feels it, one becomes aware of it at every step, the higher still — and higher — vision, the ethereal presentment; his rare and dehcate sense of humour hov- ers over all like the gayety of nations, — amused at what it sees and depicts, and loves. But he did not live to quite terminate the ItaUan Episode of The Royal End. Three years after, it was Henry Harland ' s wife who terminated The Royal End. The American episode is