Carl Van Vechten

“ As we stood before them, Peter imagined tales of adventure and romance to suit the subjects, pinning his narratives to the expression of a face, the style of a sleeve, the embroidery of a doublet, or to some accompanying puppet or pet, some ill-featured hunch-back dwarf.
Thus the days passed and Peter became dreamy and wistful and the charm of his spirit, I believe, was never before so poignant, for his chameleon soul had taken on the hue of the renaissance and its accompanying spirituality, the spirituality of the artist, the happy working artist contriving works of genius. ”

“ We engaged another fiacre and drove up the Champs-Elysées. Now, it was Richards and I who had become vibrant. Peter was silent and old and apart. The dawn, the beautiful indigo dawn of Paris was upon us. The cool trees were our only companions in the deserted streets until, near the great grey arch, we began to encounter the wagons laden with vegetables, bound for the Halles, wagons on which carrots, parsnips, turnips, onions, radishes, and heads of lettuce were stacked in orderly and intricate patterns. ”

“ Can't you see the picture in my last chapter of the little, lame, hare-lipped hunch-back, with one blue eye and one black one, marching up Fifth Avenue with the comrades, wrapped in the red flag, her face stained with blood, humbling the Guggenheimers and the Morgans, disturbing the sleep of Henry Clay Frick, casting art treasures, bought with the blood of the poor, out to the pavement, breaking windows, shooting, torturing, devastating? Then the triumphant return to the East Side, Rosie on the men's shoulders. Everybody tired and sweaty, satiated and bloody. ”

“ Where is the arrangement, the colour, the form? Hardy merely photographs life!
But aren't you trying to photograph still life?
Peter's face was almost purple; I thought he would burst a blood-vessel.
Don't you understand that perfumes and reaping-machines are never to be found together in real life? That is art, making a pattern, dragging unfamiliar words and colours and sounds together until they form a pattern, a beautiful pattern. An Aubusson carpet is art, and it is assuredly not a photograph of still life. ”

“ Friends have an unpleasant habit of weighing on our consciences, occupying too much of our time, and chiding us because we have failed them in some unimportant particular. Is it strange that there are moments when we hate them? Friendship, indeed, is as perilous a relationship as marriage; it, too, entails responsibility, that great god whose existence burdens our lives. Seemingly we never escape from his influence. Each newly contracted friendship brings another sacrifice to the altar of this very Christian divinity. But there was no responsibility connected with my friendship for Peter. ”

“ I lay back against the seat and gazed at the stars for a moment as the drive began through the warm, fragrant Paris air, the drive back to the right bank, this time across the Pont Neuf, down the Rue de Rivoli, through the Place de la Concorde, where the fountains were playing, and up the Champs-Elysées. The aroma of the chestnuts, the melting grey of the buildings, the legions of carriages and buses, filled with happy, chattering people, the glitter of electricity, all the mystic wonder of this enchanting night will always stay with me. ”

“ Chapter IX In September, 1913, I found myself on the Paris-Milan Express on my way to Venice to meet Edith Dale. I have travelled across Switzerland many times and I hope to do so again (the view from the car-windows is magnificent) , but I shall never visit that country. God keep me from lingering in the mountains or by the shores of the sea. Such immensities of nature strangle talent and even dwarf genius. No great creative work has ever been composed by the sea or in the shadow of a mountain. In the presence of the perpetual mysteries of nature, man feels his smallness. ”

“ Never did I feel less sure of the meaning of art than I do here, surrounded by it, began Peter, although I have never been more conscious of it, more susceptible to real beauty, more lulled by its magic. Yet I do not understand its meaning. It does not help me to work out my own problems. The trails cross. For instance, here is Edith leading her own life; here are we all leading our own lives, as remote as possible from Donatello and Gozzoli. ”

“ The scent of Cœur de Jeannette seemed to grow heavier. Within bounds, I was amused by her display of emotion but I was also bored. My face must have showed it. Martha worked on for a moment or two and then flung down her brushes.
It's no good, no good at all, she announced. You have no expression today. I can't get behind your mask. Your face is completely empty.
And, I may add, as this was the last day that Martha ever painted on this portrait, she never did get behind the mask. To that extent I triumphed, and the picture still exists to confuse people as to my real personality. ”

“ On the table before him there was a highball glass, half-full of the proper ingredients, and sprawling beside him on the sofa, a magnificent blue Persian cat, which he called Chalcedony. George Moore and George Sand had long since perished of old age and Lou Matagot had been a victim of the laboratory explosion. There was a certain melancholy implicit in their absence. Nothing reminds us so irresistibly of the passing of time as the short age allotted on this earth to our dear cats. ”

“ An artist friend, Albert Worcester, had already determined my destination and so I gave commands, Hotel de la Place de l'Odéon, the cocher cracked his whip, probably adding a Hue cocotte! and we were under way. The drive through the streets that evening seemed like a dream and, even later, when the streets of Paris had become more familiar to me than those of any other city, I could occasionally recapture the mood of this first vision. ”

“ This time, Carl; he spoke with great intensity and earnestness, I am on the right track. I am convinced that to give a work of this character a proper background one must know a great deal more than one tells. That, in fact, is the secret of all fine literature, the secret of all great art, that it conceals and suggests. The edges, of course, are rounded: it is not a rough and obvious concealment. You cannot begin not to tell until you know more than you are willing to impart. These books have given me a good deal, but I must go farther—as I am convinced that Machen has gone farther. ”

“ So remarked Peter, explaining that the quality of both the David and Leonardo's darling was the same, both possessed a compelling charm, and it was the charm of David which had slain the ugly giant, just as charm always kills ugliness. And he swore that this was the most beautiful object that the hand of man had yet created, an art expression which reached its emotional and intellectual zenith, and then he spoke of the advantage that sculpture enjoyed over painting. ”

“ Nobody reads his books; nobody has read them . . . except the few who see and feel, and John Masefield is one of these. This master of English prose, this hierophant, who knows all the secrets and keeps them, this delver in forgotten lore, this wise poet who uplifts and in spires us, is an humble journalist and he drinks beer!
Peter paused and looked at me, possibly for corroboration, but what could I say? I had never, until then, touched upon Machen, although I remembered that Mina Loy had included him in her catalogue of protestants in the symposium at the Villa Allegra. ”