I Am Glad Never To Have Discovered Anyone, Native Or Foreign, Who Has
Been Aware Of The Existence Of This
Nocturnal emanation; glad because it
corroborates a theory of mine, to wit, that mankind is forgetting the
use of its
Nose; and not only of nose, but of eyes and ears and all
other natural appliances which help to capture and intensify the simple
joys of life. We all know the civilised, the industrial eye - how
atrophied, how small and formless and expressionless it has become. The
civilised nose, it would seem, degenerates in the other direction. Like
the cultured potato or pumpkin, it swells in size. The French are
civilised and, if we may judge by old engravings (what else are we to
take as guide, seeing that the skull affords some criterion as to shape
but not size of nose?) they certainly seem to accentuate this organ in
proportion as they neglect its use. Parisians, it strikes me, are
running to nose; they wax more rat-like every day. Here is a little
problem for anthropologists. There may be something, after all, in the
condition of Paris life which fosters the development of this peeky,
rodential countenance. Perfumery, and what it implies? There are
scent-shops galore in the fashionable boulevards, whereas I defy you to
show me a single stationer. Maupassant knew them fairly well, and one
thinks of that story of his: -
"Le parfum de Monsieur?"
"La verveine...." [22]
Speaking of the French, I climbed those ninety odd stairs the other day
to announce my arrival in Italy to my friend Mrs. N., who, being vastly
busy at that moment and on no account to be disturbed, least of all by a
male, sent word to say that I might wait on the terrace or in that
microscopic but well-equipped library of hers. I chose the latter, and
there browsed upon "Emaux et Camees" and the "Fleurs du Mal" which
happened, as was meet and proper, to lie beside each other.
Strange reading, at this distance of time. These, I thought - these are
the things which used to give us something of a thrill.
If they no longer provide that sensation, it may well be that we have
absorbed their spirit so thoroughly into our system that we forget
whence we drew it. They have become part of ourselves. Even now, one
cannot help admiring Gautier's precision of imagery, his gift of being
quaint and yet lucid as a diamond; one pictures those crocodiles
fainting in the heat, and notes, too, whence the author of the "Sphinx"
drew his hard, glittering, mineralogical flavour. The verse is not so
much easy as facile. And not all the grace of internals can atone for
external monotony. That trick - that full stop at the end of nearly every
fourth line - it impairs the charm of the music and renders its flow
jerky; coming, as it does, like an ever-repeated blow, it grows
wearisome to the ear, and finally abhorrent.
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