A Writer's Notebook (23 page)

But the great charm of
Holy Dying
lies in the general atmosphere of the book, scented and formal, calm and urbane like an old-world garden; and still more in the beautiful poetry of stray phrases. One cannot turn a page without finding some felicitous expression, some new order of simple words which seems to give them a new value; and often enough some picturesque passage, overladen, like that earliest charming rococo in which decoration was exuberant, but notwithstanding kept within the bounds of perfect taste.

Nowadays in looking for an epithet the conscientious writer searches (generally in vain!) for one which shall put the thing to be described in a new light, disclosing some characteristic which has never before been revealed; but Jeremy Taylor never even tries to do anything of the kind. The adjective which comes first to his mind is the one he uses. There are a thousand epithets with which you may describe the sea, the only one which, if you fancy yourself as a stylist, you will scrupulously avoid is
blue;
yet it is that which most satisfies Jeremy Taylor. He has not the incisive phrase of Milton, the poetic power of putting together nouns and adjectives, adverbs and verbs, in a conjunction which has never been used before. He never surprises. His imagination is without violence or daring. He is content to walk the old road, using phrases and expressions as he finds them; and the chief peculiarity of his style consists in his mild, bucolic outlook upon life. He sees the world amiably and transcribes it exactly, without great art; but with a pleasing desire to put things as picturesquely as he can.

The rising sun coloured the mist variously, till it was iridescent as the chalcedony, purple and rosy and green.

Terracotta Statuettes. I was enchanted by the facile motion of the little figures, by their bold gestures and nonchalant attitudes. In the folds of their drapery, in their arrested movements, there was all the spirit of that civilisation of the fresh air which was perhaps the chief part of Hellenic existence. A row of figurines from Tanagra fills the imaginative mind with an ardent longing for that freer, simple life of ancient times.

The sad, stormy night of eternal damnation.

And occasionally, in a break of the rapid clouds, appeared a pale star shivering in the cold.

An azure more profound than the rich enamel of an old French jewel.

The ploughed fields gaining in the sunshine the manifold colours of the jasper.

The foliage of the elm trees more sombre than jade.

In the sun the wet leaves glistened like emeralds, meretricious stones which might fitly deck the pompous depravity of a royal courtesan.

Rich with an artificial, elaborate richness like those old gorgeous jewels incrusted with precious stones.

A green like that of the old enamelled jewels which is more translucent than emerald.

The rich profundity of the garnet.

It had the transparent, coloured richness of a scale of agate.

The sky more luminously blue than the lapis lazuli.

Under the dying sun, after the rain, the colours of the country assumed a new, an almost laboured richness, resembling for a moment the opulent hues of Limoges enamel.

Like a Limoges plate sparkling with opulent colours.

The water, in the deep translucent shadow, had the dark, heavy richness of jade.

The reader may well ask himself what these enamels, what these stones, precious and semi-precious, are doing here. I will tell him. At that time, still impressed by the exuberant prose that was fashionable in the nineties and aware that my own was flat, plain and pedestrian, I thought I should try to give it more colour and more ornament. That is why I read Milton and Jeremy Taylor with laborious zeal. One day, my mind upon a florid passage in Oscar Wilde's
Salome,
I took pencil and paper and went to the British Museum where, hoping they would come in handy, I made these notes
.

Piccadilly before dawn. After the stir and ceaseless traffic of the day, the silence of Piccadilly early in the morning, in the small hours, seems barely credible. It is unnatural and rather ghostly. The great street in its emptiness has a sort of solemn broadness, descending in a majestic sweep with the assured and stately ease of a placid river. The air is pure and limpid, but resonant, so that a solitary cab suddenly sends the whole street ringing, and the emphatic trot of the horse resounds with long reverberations. Impressive by reason of their regularity, the electric lights, self-assertive and brazen, flood the surroundings with a harsh and snowy brilliance; with a kind of indifferent violence they cast their glare upon the
huge silent houses, and lower down throw into distinctness the long evenness of the park railings and the nearer trees. And between, outshone, like an uneven string of discoloured gems, twinkles the yellow flicker of the gas jets.

There is silence everywhere, but the houses are quiet and still, with a different silence from the rest, standing very white but for the black gaping of the many windows. In their sleep, closed and bolted, they line the pavement, helplessly as it were, disordered and undignified, having lost all significance without the busy hum of human voices and the hurrying noise of persons passing in and out.

The autumn too has its flowers, but they are little loved and little praised.

This is such nonsense that I cannot believe it was meant literally, and I have wondered whether this conceit occurred to me because a woman somewhat advanced in years had made a pass on the shy young man I was then
.

K. I think you can often get to know a good deal about a man by discovering what books he reads. In the quiet life which falls to the share of most of us, the spirit of adventure is with difficulty able to satisfy itself in any way other than by reading. In the perusal of books men are able to lead artificial lives which are often truer than those circumstances have forced upon them. If you asked K. which books had chiefly influenced him, he would have perhaps been at a loss for an answer; it is a question often asked, and it is not really so silly as at first sight it seems. The answer generally given is the Bible and Shakespeare, sometimes from mere hypocritical foolishness, but often for fear of being thought pretentious if the reply is more original than was expected. I do not think K. would name the books which have most occupied his mind, which have given him the most vivid sensations, without some
complacency. The
Satyricon
of Petronius Arbiter would be on the list along with Newman's
Apologia
, Apuleius along with Walter Pater; George Meredith, the Judicious Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne and Gibbon. What takes his fancy most is gorgeousness of style. He likes the precious. Of course, he's rather an ass; an intelligent, well-read ass.