At Home And Abroad Part 18

At the Sadler's Wells theatre I saw a play which I had much admired in reading it, but found still better in actual representation; indeed, it seems to me there can be no better acting play: this is "The Patrician's Daughter," by J.W. Marston. The movement is rapid, yet clear and free; the dialogue natural, dignified, and flowing; the characters marked with few, but distinct strokes. Where the tone of discourse rises with manly sentiment or pa.s.sion, the audience applauded with bursts of generous feeling that gave me great pleasure, for this play is one that, in its scope and meaning, marks the new era in England; it is full of an experience which is inevitable to a man of talent there, and is harbinger of the day when the n.o.blest commoner shall be the only n.o.ble possible in England.

But how different all this acting to what I find in France! Here the theatre is living; you see something really good, and good throughout.

Not one touch of that stage strut and vulgar bombast of tone, which the English actor fancies indispensable to scenic illusion, is tolerated here. For the first time in my life I saw something represented in a style uniformly good, and should have found sufficient proof, if I had needed any, that all men will prefer what is good to what is bad, if only a fair opportunity for choice be allowed. When I came here, my first thought was to go and see Mademoiselle Rachel. I was sure that in her I should find a true genius, absolutely the diamond, and so it proved. I went to see her seven or eight times, always in parts that required great force of soul and purity of taste even to conceive them, and only once had reason to find fault with her. On one single occasion I saw her violate the harmony of the character to produce effect at a particular moment; but almost invariably I found her a true artist, worthy Greece, and worthy at many moments to have her conceptions immortalized in marble.

Her range even in high tragedy is limited. She can only express the darker pa.s.sions, and grief in its most desolate aspects. Nature has not gifted her with those softer and more flowery attributes that lend to pathos its utmost tenderness. She does not melt to tears, or calm or elevate the heart by the presence of that tragic beauty that needs all the a.s.saults of Fate to make it show its immortal sweetness. Her n.o.blest aspect is when sometimes she expresses truth in some severe shape, and rises, simple and austere, above the mixed elements around her. On the dark side, she is very great in hatred and revenge. I admired her more in Phedre than in any other part in which I saw her.

The guilty love inspired by the hatred of a G.o.ddess was expressed in all its symptoms with a force and terrible naturalness that almost suffocated the beholder. After she had taken the poison, the exhaustion and paralysis of the system, the sad, cold, calm submission to Fate, were still more grand.

I had heard so much about the power of her eye in one fixed look, and the expression she could concentrate in a single word, that the utmost results could only satisfy my expectations. It is, indeed, something magnificent to see the dark cloud give out such sparks, each one fit to deal a separate death; but it was not that I admired most in her: it was the grandeur, truth, and depth of her conception of each part, and the sustained purity with which she represented it.

For the rest, I shall write somewhere a detailed _critique_ upon the parts in which I saw her. It is she who has made me acquainted with the true way of viewing French tragedy. I had no idea of its powers and symmetry till now, and have received from the revelation high pleasure and a crowd of thoughts.

The French language from her lips is a divine dialect; it is stripped of its national and personal peculiarities, and becomes what any language must, moulded by such a genius, the pure music of the heart and soul. I never could remember her tone in speaking any word; it was too perfect; you had received the thought quite direct. Yet, had I never heard her speak a word, my mind would, be filled by her att.i.tudes. Nothing more graceful can be conceived, nor could the genius of sculpture surpa.s.s her management of the antique drapery.

She has no beauty except in the intellectual severity of her outline, and bears marks of age which will grow stronger every year, and make her ugly before long. Still it will be a _grandiose_, gypsy, or rather Sibylline ugliness, well adapted to the expression of some tragic parts. Only it seems as if she could not live long; she expends force enough upon a part to furnish out a dozen common lives.

Though the French tragedy is well acted throughout, yet unhappily there is no male actor now with a spark of fire, and these men seem the meanest pigmies by the side of Rachel;--so on the scene, beside the tragedy intended by the author, you see also that common tragedy, a woman of genius who throws away her precious heart, lives and dies for one unworthy of her. In parts this effect is productive of too much pain. I saw Rachel one night with her brother and sister. The sister imitated her so closely that you could not help seeing she had a manner, and an imitable manner. Her brother was in the play her lover,--a wretched automaton, and presenting the most unhappy family likeness to herself. Since then I have hardly cared to go and see her.

We could wish with geniuses, as with the Phoenix, to see only one of the family at a time.

In the pathetic or sentimental drama Paris boasts another young actress, nearly as distinguished in that walk as Rachel in hers.

This is Rose Cheny, whom we saw in her ninety-eighth personation of Clarissa Harlowe, and afterward in Genevieve and the _Protege sans le Savoir_,--a little piece written expressly for her by Scribe.

The "Miss Clarisse" of the French drama is a feeble and partial reproduction of the heroine of Richardson; indeed, the original in all its force of intellect and character would have been too much for the charming Rose Cheny, but to the purity and lovely tenderness of Clarissa she does full justice. In the other characters she was the true French girl, full of grace and a mixture of _navete_ and cunning, sentiment and frivolity, that is winning and _piquant_, if not satisfying. Only grief seems very strange to those bright eyes; we do not find that they can weep much and bear the light of day, and the inhaling of charcoal seems near at hand to their brightest pleasures.

At the other little theatres you see excellent acting, and a sparkle of wit unknown to the world out of France. The little pieces in which all the leading topics of the day are reviewed are full of drolleries that make you laugh at each instant. _Poudre-Colon_ is the only one of these I have seen; in this, among other jokes, Dumas, in the character of Monte-Christo and in a costume half Oriental, half juggler, is made to pa.s.s the other theatres in review while seeking candidates for his new one.

Dumas appeared in court yesterday, and defended his own cause against the editors who sue him for evading some of his engagements. I was very desirous to hear him speak, and went there in what I was a.s.sured would be very good season; but a French audience, who knew the ground better, had slipped in before me, and I returned, as has been too often the case with me in Paris, having seen nothing but endless staircases, dreary vestibules, and _gens d'armes_. The hospitality of _le grande nation_ to the stranger is, in many respects, admirable.

Galleries, libraries, cabinets of coins, museums, are opened in the most liberal manner to the stranger, warmed, lighted, ay, and guarded, for him almost all days in the week; treasures of the past are at his service; but when anything is happening in the present, the French run quicker, glide in more adroitly, and get possession of the ground. I find it not the most easy matter to get to places even where there is nothing going on, there is so much tiresome fuss of getting _billets_ from one and another to be gone through; but when something is happening it is still worse. I missed hearing M. Guizot in his speech on the Montpensier marriage, which would have given a very good idea of his manner, and which, like this defence of M. Dumas, was a skilful piece of work as regards evasion of the truth. The good feeling toward England which had been fostered with so much care and toil seems to have been entirely dissipated by the mutual recriminations about this marriage, and the old dislike flames up more fiercely for having been hid awhile beneath the ashes. I saw the little d.u.c.h.ess, the innocent or ignorant cause of all this disturbance, when presented at court.

She went round the circle on the arm of the Queen. Though only fourteen, she looks twenty, but has something fresh, engaging, and girlish about her. I fancy it will soon be rubbed out under the drill of the royal household.

I attended not only at the presentation, but at the ball given at the Tuileries directly after. These are fine shows, as the suite of apartments is very handsome, brilliantly lighted, and the French ladies surpa.s.s all others in the art of dress; indeed, it gave me much, pleasure to see them. Certainly there are many ugly ones, but they are so well dressed, and have such an air of graceful vivacity, that the general effect was that of a flower-garden. As often happens, several American women were among the most distinguished for positive beauty; one from Philadelphia, who is by many persons considered the prettiest ornament of the dress circle at the Italian Opera, was especially marked by the attention of the king. However, these ladies, even if here a long time, do not attain the air and manner of French women; the magnetic atmosphere that envelops them is less brilliant and exhilarating in its attractions.

It was pleasant to my eye, which has always been so wearied in our country by the sombre ma.s.ses of men that overcloud our public a.s.semblies, to see them now in so great variety of costume, color, and decoration.

Among the crowd wandered Leverrier, in the costume of Academician, looking as if he had lost, not found, his planet. French _savants_ are more generally men of the world, and even men of fashion, than those of other climates; but, in his case, he seemed not to find it easy to exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles.

Speaking of Leverrier leads to another of my disappointments. I went to the Sorbonne to hear him lecture, nothing dreaming that the old pedantic and theological character of those halls was strictly kept up in these days of light. An old guardian of the inner temple, seeing me approach, had his speech all ready, and, manning the entrance, said with a disdainful air, before we had time to utter a word, "Monsieur may enter if he pleases, but Madame must remain here" (i.e. in the court-yard). After some exclamations of surprise, I found an alternative in the Hotel de Clugny, where I pa.s.sed an hour very delightfully while waiting for my companion. The rich remains of other centuries are there so arranged that they can be seen to the best advantage; many of the works in ivory, china, and carved wood are truly splendid or exquisite. I saw a dagger with jewelled hilt which talked whole poems to my mind. In the various "Adorations of the Magi," I found constantly one of the wise men black, and with the marked African lineaments. Before I had half finished, my companion came and wished me at least to visit the lecture-rooms of the Sorbonne, now that the talk, too good for female ears, was over.

But the guardian again interfered to deny me entrance. "You can go, Madame," said he, "to the College of France; you can go to this and t'other place, but you cannot enter here." "What, sir," said I, "is it your inst.i.tution alone that remains in a state of barbarism?" "Que voulez vous, Madame?" he replied, and, as he spoke, his little dog began to bark at me,--"Que voulez vous, Madame? c'est la regle,"--"What would you have, Madam? IT IS THE RULE,"--a reply which makes me laugh even now, as I think how the satirical wits of former days might have used it against the bulwarks of learned dulness.

I was more fortunate in hearing Arago, and he justified all my expectations. Clear, rapid, full and equal, his discourse is worthy its celebrity, and I felt repaid for the four hours one is obliged to spend in going, in waiting, and in hearing; for the lecture begins at half past one, and you must be there before twelve to get a seat, so constant and animated is his popularity.

I have attended, with some interest, two discussions at the Athenee,--one on Suicide, the other on the Crusades. They are amateur affairs, where, as always at such times, one hears much, nonsense and vanity, much making of phrases and sentimental grimace; but there was one excellent speaker, adroit and rapid as only a Frenchman could be.

With admirable readiness, skill, and rhetorical polish, he examined the arguments of all the others, and built upon their failures a triumph for himself. His management of the language, too, was masterly, and French is the best of languages for such a purpose,--clear, flexible, full of sparkling points and quick, picturesque turns, with a subtile blandness that makes the dart tickle while it wounds. Truly he pleased the fancy, filled the ear, and carried us pleasantly along over the smooth, swift waters; but then came from the crowd a gentleman, not one of the appointed orators of the evening, but who had really something in his heart to say,--a grave, dark man, with Spanish eyes, and the simple dignity of honor and earnestness in all his gesture and manner. He said in few and unadorned words his say, and the sense of a real presence filled the room, and those charms of rhetoric faded, as vanish the beauties of soap-bubbles from the eyes of astonished childhood.

I was present on one good occasion at the Academy the day that M.

Remusat was received there in the place of Royer-Collard. I looked down from one of the tribunes upon the flower of the celebrities of France, that is to say, of the celebrities which are authentic, _comme il faut_. Among them were many marked faces, many fine heads; but in reading the works of poets we always fancy them about the age of Apollo himself, and I found with pain some of my favorites quite old, and very unlike the company on Parna.s.sus as represented by Raphael.

Some, however, were venerable, even n.o.ble, to behold. Indeed, the literary dynasty of France is growing old, and here, as in England and Germany, there seems likely to occur a serious gap before the inauguration of another, if indeed another is coming.

However, it was an imposing sight; there are men of real distinction now in the Academy, and Moliere would have a fair chance if he were proposed to-day. Among the audience I saw many ladies of fine expression and manner, as well as one or two _precieuses ridicules_, a race which is never quite extinct.

M. Remusat, as is the custom on these occasions, painted the portrait of his predecessor; the discourse was brilliant and discriminating in the details, but the orator seemed to me to neglect drawing some obvious inferences which would have given a better point of view for his subject.

A _seance_ to me much more impressive find interesting was one which borrowed nothing from dress, decorations, or the presence of t.i.tled pomp. I went to call on La Mennais, to whom I had a letter, I found him in a little study; his secretary was writing in a larger room through which I pa.s.sed. With him was a somewhat citizen-looking, but vivacious, elderly man, whom I was at first sorry to see, having wished for half an hour's undisturbed visit to the apostle of Democracy. But how quickly were those feelings displaced by joy when he named to me the great national lyrist of France, the unequalled Beranger. I had not expected to see him at all, for he is not one to be seen in any show place; he lives in the hearts of the people, and needs no homage from their eyes. I was very happy in that little study in presence of these two men, whose influence has been so great, so real. To me Beranger has been much; his wit, his pathos, his exquisite lyric grace, have made the most delicate strings vibrate, and I can feel, as well as see, what he is in his nation and his place. I have not personally received anything from La Mennais, as, born under other circ.u.mstances, mental facts which he, once the pupil of Rome, has learned by pa.s.sing through severe ordeals, are at the basis of all my thoughts. But I see well what he has been and is to Europe, and of what great force of nature and spirit. He seems suffering and pale, but in his eyes is the light of the future.

These are men who need no flourish of trumpets to announce their coming,--no band of martial music upon their steps,--no obsequious n.o.bles in their train. They are the true kings, the theocratic kings, the judges in Israel. The hearts of men make music at their approach; the mind of the age is the historian of their pa.s.sage; and only men of destiny like themselves shall be permitted to write their eulogies, or fill their vacant seats.

Wherever there is a genius like his own, a germ of the finest fruit still hidden beneath the soil, the "_Chante pauvre pet.i.t_" of Beranger shall strike, like a sunbeam, and give it force to emerge, and wherever there is the true Crusade,--for the spirit, not the tomb of Christ,--shall be felt an echo of the "_Que tes armes soient benis jeune soldat_" of La Mennais.

LETTER XI.

FRANCE AND HER ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE.--THE PICTURES OF HORACE VERNET.--DE LA ROCHE.--LEOPOLD ROBERT.--CONTRAST BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH SCHOOLS OF ART.--THE GENERAL APPRECIATION OF TURNER'S PICTURES.--BOTANICAL MODELS IN WAX.--MUSIC.--THE OPERA.--DUPREZ.-- LABLACHE.--RONCONI.--GRISI.--PERSIANA.--"SEMIRAMIDE" AS PERFORMED BY THE NEW YORK AND PARIS OPERAS.--MARIO.--COLETTI.--GARDINI.-- "DON GIOVANNI."--THE WRITER'S TRIAL OF THE "LETHEON."--ITS EFFECTS.

It needs not to speak in this cursory manner of the treasures of Art, pictures, sculptures, engravings, and the other riches which France lays open so freely to the stranger in her Musees. Any examination worth writing of such objects, or account of the thoughts they inspire, demands a place by itself, and an ample field in which to expatiate. The American, first introduced to some good pictures by the truly great geniuses of the religious period in Art, must, if capable at all of mental approximation to the life therein embodied, be too deeply affected, too full of thoughts, to be in haste to say anything, and for me, I bide my time.

No such great crisis, however, is to be apprehended from acquaintance with the productions of the modern French school. They are, indeed, full of talent and of vigor, but also melodramatic and exaggerated to a degree that seems to give the nightmare pa.s.sage through the fresh and cheerful day. They sound no depth of soul, and are marked with the signet of a degenerate age.

Thus speak I generally. To the pictures of Horace Vernet one cannot but turn a gracious eye, they are so faithful a transcript of the life which circulates around us in the present state of things, and we are willing to see his n.o.bles and generals mounted on such excellent horses. De la Roche gives me pleasure; there is in his pictures a simple and natural poesy; he is a man who has in his own heart a well of good water, whence he draws for himself when the streams are mixed with strange soil and bear offensive marks of the b.l.o.o.d.y battles of life.

The pictures of Leopold Robert I find charming. They are full of vigor and n.o.bleness; they express a nature where all is rich, young, and on a large scale. Those that I have seen are so happily expressive of the thoughts and perceptions of early manhood, I can hardly regret he did not live to enter on another stage of life, the impression now received is so single.

The effort of the French school in Art, as also its main tendency in literature, seems to be to turn the mind inside out, in the coa.r.s.est acceptation of such a phrase. Art can only be truly Art by presenting an adequate outward symbol of some fact in the interior life. But then it _is_ a symbol that Art seeks to present, and not the fact itself.

These French painters seem to have no idea of this; they have not studied the method of Nature. With the true artist, as with Nature herself, the more full the representation, the more profound and enchanting is the sense of mystery. We look and look, as on a flower of which we cannot scrutinize the secret life, yet b; looking seem constantly drawn nearer to the soul that causes and governs that life.

But in the French pictures suffering is represented by streams of blood,--wickedness by the most ghastly contortions.

I saw a movement in the opposite direction in England; it was in Turner's pictures of the later period. It is well known that Turner, so long an idol of the English public, paints now in a manner which has caused the liveliest dissensions in the world of connoisseurs.

There are two parties, one of which maintains, not only that the pictures of the late period are not good, but that they are not pictures at all,--that it is impossible to make out the design, or find what Turner is aiming at by those strange blotches of color.

The other party declare that these pictures are not only good, but divine,--that whoever looks upon them in the true manner will not fail to find there somewhat ineffably and transcendently admirable,--the soul of Art. Books have been written to defend this side of the question.

I had become much interested about this matter, as the fervor of feeling on either side seemed to denote that there was something real and vital going on, and, while time would not permit my visiting other private collections in London and its neighborhood, I insisted on taking it for one of Turner's pictures. It was at the house of one of his devoutest disciples, who has arranged everything in the rooms to harmonize with them. There were a great many of the earlier period; these seemed to me charming, but superficial, views of Nature. They were of a character that he who runs may read,--obvious, simple, graceful. The later pictures were quite a different matter; mysterious-looking things,--hieroglyphics of picture, rather than picture itself. Sometimes you saw a range of red dots, which, after long looking, dawned on you as the roofs of houses,--shining streaks turned out to be most alluring rivulets, if traced with patience and a devout eye. Above all, they charmed the eye and the thought. Still, these pictures, it seems to me, cannot be considered fine works of Art, more than the mystical writing common to a certain cla.s.s of minds in the United States can be called good writing. A great work of Art demands a great thought, or a thought of beauty adequately expressed.

Neither in Art nor literature more than in life can an ordinary thought be made interesting because well dressed. But in a transition state, whether of Art or literature, deeper thoughts are imperfectly expressed, because they cannot yet be held and treated masterly.

This seems to be the case with Turner. He has got beyond the English gentleman's conventional view of Nature, which implies a _little_ sentiment and a _very_ cultivated taste; he has become awake to what is elemental, normal, in Nature,--such, for instance, as one sees in the working of water on the sea-sh.o.r.e. He tries to represent these primitive forms. In the drawings of Piranesi, in the pictures of Rembrandt, one sees this grand language exhibited more truly. It is not picture, but certain primitive and leading effects of light and shadow, or lines and contours, that captivate the attention. I saw a picture of Rembrandt's at the Louvre, whose subject I do not know and have never cared to inquire. I cannot a.n.a.lyze the group, but I understand and feel the thought it embodies. At something similar Turner seems aiming; an aim so opposed to the practical and outward tendency of the English mind, that, as a matter of course, the majority find themselves mystified, and thereby angered, but for the same reason answering to so deep and seldom satisfied a want in the minds of the minority, as to secure the most ardent sympathy where any at all can be elicited.

Upon this topic of the primitive forms and operations of nature, I am reminded of something interesting I was looking at yesterday. These are botanical models in wax, with microscopic dissections, by an artist from Florence, a pupil of Calamajo, the Director of the Wax-Model Museum there. I saw collections of ten different genera, embracing from fifty to sixty species, of Fungi, Mosses, and Lichens, detected and displayed in all the beautiful secrets of their lives; many of them, as observed by Dr. Leveille of Paris. The artist told me that a fisherman, introduced to such acquaintance with the marvels of love and beauty which we trample under foot or burn in the chimney each careless day, exclaimed, "'Tis the good G.o.d who protects us on the sea that made all these"; and a similar recognition, a correspondent feeling, will not be easily evaded by the most callous observer. This artist has supplied many of these models to the magnificent collection of the _Jardin des Plantes_, to Edinburgh, and to Bologna, and would furnish them, to our museums at a much cheaper rate than they can elsewhere be obtained. I wish the Universities of Cambridge, New York, and other leading inst.i.tutions of our country, might avail themselves of the opportunity.

In Paris I have not been very fortunate in hearing the best music.

At the different Opera-Houses, the orchestra is always good, but the vocalization, though far superior to what I have heard at home, falls so far short of my ideas and hopes that--except to the Italian Opera--I have not been often. The _Opera Comique_ I visited only once; it was tolerably well, and no more, and, for myself, I find the tolerable intolerable in music. At the Grand Opera I heard _Robert le Diable_ and _Guillaume Tell_ almost with ennui; the decorations and dresses are magnificent, the instrumental performance good, but not one fine singer to fill these fine parts. Duprez has had a great reputation, and probably has sung better In former days; still he has a vulgar mind, and can never have had any merit as an artist. At present I find him unbearable. He forces his voice, sings in the most coa.r.s.e, showy style, and aims at producing effects without regard to the harmony of his part; fat and vulgar, he still takes the part of the lover and young chevalier; to my sorrow I saw him in Ravenswood, and he has well-nigh disenchanted for me the Bride of Lammermoor.

The Italian Opera is here as well sustained, I believe, as anywhere in the world at present; all about it is certainly quite good, but alas!

nothing excellent, nothing admirable. Yet no! I must not say nothing: Lablache is excellent,--voice, intonation, manner of song, action.

Ronconi I found good in the Doctor of "_L'Elisire d'Amore_". For the higher parts Grisi, though now much too large for some of her parts, and without a particle of poetic grace or dignity, has certainly beauty of feature, and from nature a fine voice. But I find her conception of her parts equally coa.r.s.e and shallow. Her love is the love of a peasant; her anger, though having the Italian picturesque richness and vigor, is the anger of an Italian fishwife, entirely unlike anything in the same rank elsewhere; her despair is that of a person with the toothache, or who has drawn a blank in the lottery.

The first time I saw her was in _Norma_; then the beauty of her outline, which becomes really enchanting as she recalls the first emotions of love, the force and gush of her song, filled my ear, and charmed the senses, so that I was pleased, and did not perceive her great defects; but with each time of seeing her I liked her less, and now I do not like her at all.

Persiani is more generally a favorite here; she is indeed skilful both as an actress and in the management of her voice, but I find her expression meretricious, her singing mechanical. Neither of these women is equal to Pico in natural force, if she had but the same advantages of culture and environment. In hearing _Semiramide_ here, I first learned to appreciate the degree of talent with which it was cast in New York. Grisi indeed is a far better Semiramis than Borghese, but the best parts of the opera lost all their charm from the inferiority of Brambilla, who took Pico's place. Mario has a charming voice, grace and tenderness; he fills very well the part of the young, chivalric lover, but he has no range of power. Coletti is a very good singer; he has not from Nature a fine voice or personal beauty; but he has talent, good taste, and often surpa.s.ses the expectation he has inspired. Gardini, the new singer, I have only heard once, and that was in a lovesick-shepherd part; he showed delicacy, tenderness, and tact. In fine, among all these male singers there is much to please, but little to charm; and for the women, they never fail absolutely to fill their parts, but no ray of the Muse has fallen on them.

_Don Giovanni_ conferred on me a benefit, of which certainly its great author never dreamed. I shall relate it,--first begging pardon of Mozart, and a.s.suring him I had no thought of turning his music to the account of a "vulgar utility." It was quite by accident. After suffering several days very much with the toothache, I resolved to get rid of the cause of sorrow by the aid of ether; not sorry, either, to try its efficacy, after all the marvellous stories I had heard.

The first time I inhaled it, I did not for several seconds feel the effect, and was just thinking, "Alas! this has not power to soothe nerves so irritable as mine," when suddenly I wandered off, I don't know where, but it was a sensation like wandering in long garden-walks, and through many alleys of trees,--many impressions, but all pleasant and serene. The moment the tube was removed, I started into consciousness, and put my hand to my cheek; but, sad! the throbbing tooth was still there. The dentist said I had not seemed to him insensible. He then gave me the ether in a stronger dose, and this time I quitted the body instantly, and cannot remember any detail of what I saw and did; but the impression was as in the Oriental tale, where the man has his head in the water an instant only, but in his vision a thousand years seem to have pa.s.sed. I experienced that same sense of an immense length of time and succession of impressions; even, now, the moment my mind was in that state seems to me a far longer period in time than my life on earth does as I look back upon it. Suddenly I seemed to see the old dentist, as I had for the moment before I inhaled the gas, amid his plants, in his nightcap and dressing-gown; in the twilight the figure had somewhat of a Faust-like, magical air, and he seemed to say, "_C'est inutile._"