Nights: Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties

Part 1

NIGHTS

Rome Venice London Paris

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LIFE OF JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER

BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL AND JOSEPH PENNELL

THOROUGHLY REVISED, FIFTH EDITION

The Authorized Life, with much new matter added which was not available at the time of issue of the elaborate two-volume edition, now out of print. Fully illustrated with 97 plates reproduced from Whistler's works. Crown octavo. XX-450 pages, Whistler binding, deckle edge. $8.50 net. Three-quarter grain levant, $7.50 net.

OUR PHILADELPHIA

BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL ILLUSTRATED BY JOSEPH PENNELL

An intimate personal record in text and in picture of the lives of the famous author and artist in the city whose recent story will be to many an absolute surprise--a city with a brilliant history, great beauty, immense wealth. Mr. Pennell's one hundred and five illustrations, made especially for this volume, will be a revelation in their interest and as art inspired by the love of his native town. Quarto, 7-1/2 by 10 inches, XIV-552 pages. Handsomely bound in red buckram, boxed. $7.50 net.

JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES OF THE PANAMA CANAL

FIFTH PRINTING

Twenty-eight reproductions of lithographs made on the Isthmus of Panama, January-March, 1912, with Mr. Pennell's introduction, giving his experiences and impressions, and a full description of each picture. Volume 7-1/4 by 10 inches. Beautifully printed on dull-finished paper. Lithograph by Mr. Pennell on cover. $1.25 net.

JOSEPH PENNELL'S PICTURES IN THE LAND OF TEMPLES

Forty reproductions of lithographs made in the Land of Temples, March-June, 1913, together with impressions and notes by the artist. Introduction by W.H.D. Rouse, Litt. D. Crown quarto, printed on dull-finished paper, lithograph by Mr. Pennell on cover. $1.25 net.

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NIGHTS

Rome Venice in the AEsthetic Eighties

London Paris in the Fighting Nineties

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL

With Sixteen Illustrations

Philadelphia and London J. B. Lippincott Company MCMXVI

Copyright, 1916, by J. B. Lippincott Company

Published March, 1916

Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company at the Washington Square Press Philadelphia, U.S.A.

PREFACE

There are times when we recall old memories much as we take down old favourites from our bookshelves, just to see how they have worn, how they have stood the test of years. Sometimes the books have worn so well that we cannot put them away until we have read every word to the very last again, we have not done with the memories until we have lived again through every moment of the past to which they belong. It is in this spirit that I brought my Nights of long ago to the test, and, finding that for me they stand it triumphantly and are still as vivid and vociferous and full of life as they were of old, I have not had the courage to loose my hold upon them and let them drift back once more into unfriendly silence.

It contributes to my pleasure in this revival of my Nights, that I have been helped in many ways to give more substantial form to the familiar ghosts who wander through them. My debt of gratitude is great. Mr. William Nicholson has been willing for me to use his portrait of Henley and from Mrs. Henley I have the bust by Rodin. Mr. Frederick H. Evans has lent me the very interesting photograph he made of Beardsley, to whom he was so good a friend, and to Mr. John Lane, the publisher of the Yellow Book, I owe Beardsley's sketch of Harland. To Mr. John Ross I am indebted for the drawing of Phil May by himself never before published, to the Houghton Mifflin Company for the portrait of Vedder, to Mr. Duveneck for the painting of himself by Mr. Joseph de Camp. The photograph of Iwan-Mueller and George W. Steevens reminds me of the day so long since when I went with them and Mrs. Steevens to Mr. Frederick Hollyer's and we were all photographed in turn, so that this record of the visit seems surely mine by right. It was Mr. Hollyer, too, who photographed the fine portrait "Bob" Stevenson painted of himself, and it was Mrs. Stevenson who gave me my copy of it. I have Mr. J. McLure Hamilton's permission to publish his portrait of J--, while J--has been so generous with his prints, portraits of old backgrounds of the Nights, that I can add this book to the many in which I have profited by his collaboration. I have also to thank the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly, in which my Nights in Rome and in Venice first appeared, for his consent to their re-publication now in book form.

Part 2

ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL

3. Adelphi Terrace House, London December 25, 1915

CONTENTS

I. DAYS: A WORD TO EXPLAIN 11

II. NIGHTS: IN ROME 27

III. NIGHTS: IN VENICE 71

IV. NIGHTS: IN LONDON 115

V. NIGHTS: IN PARIS 225

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

"J--" Frontispiece From the Painting by J. McLure Hamilton

OLD AND NEW ROME 35 From the Etching by Joseph Pennell

ELIHU VEDDER 56

FRANK DUVENECK 76 From the Painting by Joseph R. DeCamp

THE CAFE ORIENTALE, VENICE 82 From the Etching by Joseph Pennell

OUT OF OUR LONDON WINDOWS 122 From the Mezzotint by Joseph Pennell

W.E. HENLEY 125 From the Bust by Auguste Rodin

W.E. HENLEY 127 From the Painting by William Nicholson

IWAN-MUeLLER AND GEORGE W. STEEVENS 154 From a Photograph by Frederick Hollyer

"BOB" STEVENSON 160 From the Painting by Himself

HENRY HARLAND 172 From the Drawing by Aubrey Beardsley

AUBREY BEARDSLEY 178 From the Photograph by Frederick H. Evans

PHIL MAY IN CAP AND BELLS 193 From a previously unpublished Drawing by Himself

IN THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES, PARIS 235 From the Etching by Joseph Pennell

THE HALF HOUR BEFORE DINNER, PARIS 244 From the Etching by Joseph Pennell

ARISTIDE BRUANT OF THE CABARET DU MIRLITON, PARIS 290 From the Poster by Toulouse-Lautrec

DAYS

A WORD TO EXPLAIN

Part 3

NIGHTS

DAYS

A WORD TO EXPLAIN

If I wrote the story of my days during these last thirty years, it would be the story of hard work. No doubt the work often looked to others uncommonly like play, but it was work all the same.

From the start it must have struck those who did not understand and who were interested, or curious enough to spare a thought, that my principal occupation was to amuse myself. When I was young, in America the "trip to Europe" was considered the crowning pleasure, or symbol of pleasure, within the possibility of hope for even those who were most given to pleasure. In Philadelphia it also stood for money--not necessarily wealth, but the comfortably assured income that made existence behind Philadelphia's spacious red brick fronts the average Philadelphian's right. And it was with this trip that J. and I began our life together. But misleading as was the impression made to all whom it did not concern, great satisfaction as it was to my family, who saw in it the ease and comfort it represented to the Philadelphian, we ourselves, with the best will in the world, could imagine it no holiday for us, nor accept it as the symbol of the correct Philadelphia income. Our pleasure was in the fact of the many and definite commissions which obliged us to go to Europe to earn any sort of an income, correct or otherwise--commissions without which we could have faced neither the trip nor marriage. I can remember that during the two or three weeks between our wedding and our sailing we were both kept busy, J. with drawings he had to finish for the Century, and I with the last touches to an article for the Atlantic. And if the days on the boat gave us breathing space, if not much work, except in preparation, was done, the reason was that the new commissions commenced only with our landing at Liverpool.

From the moment of our arrival in England I see in memory my life by day as one long vista of work. It is mostly a beautiful vista, the more beautiful, I am ready to admit, because the work I owed the beauty to forced me to keep my eyes open and my wits about me. Under the circumstances, I simply could not afford to let what small powers of observation I possess grow rusty, for, no matter what else might happen, I had to turn my journey into some sort of readable "copy" afterwards. If I know parts of Europe fairly well, I am indebted not to the fashionable need of taking waters, not to following the approved routes of travel, not to meeting my fellow countrymen in hotels as alike as two peas no matter how different the capitals to which they belong, not to any fatuous preference of another country to my own, but to the work that brought us to England and the Continent and has kept us there, with fresh commissions, ever since.

It was work that sent us from end to end of Great Britain and gave me my knowledge of the land. As I look back to those remote days after our arrival in Liverpool, I see J. and myself on an absurd, old-fashioned, long-superannuated Rotary tandem tricycle riding along winding roads and lanes, between the hedgerows and under the elms English prose and verse had long since made familiar, in and out of little grey or red villages clustered round the old church tower, passing through great towns of many factories and high smoke-belching chimneys, halting for months under the shadow of some old castle or cathedral that had been appointed one of our stations by the way. Or I see us both trudging on foot, knapsacks on our backs, climbing up and down the brown and purple hills of the Highlands, circling the peaceful lochs, skirting the swift mountain streams, tramping along the lonely roads of the far Hebrides: summer after summer journeying to the beautiful places the usual tourist in Britain journeys to for pleasure, but where we went because papers and magazines at home, with a wisdom we applauded, had asked us to go and make the drawings and write the articles by which we paid our way in the world.

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