‘I am sitting in a café with two French-Americans’: W. B. Yeats, Max Dauthendey, James and Theodosia Durand. Durand’s ‘Communistic Manifesto’1
p. 293-311
Texte intégral
1In The Trembling of the Veil, Book IV, ‘The Tragic Generation’, W. B. Yeats recalls his visits to Paris, and in chapter XX, where he evokes ‘many pictures [which] come before me without date or order’ (CW3 264), we find the following reminiscences:
I am sitting in a café with two French-Americans, a German poet, Dauthendey, and a silent man whom I discover to be Strindberg, and who is looking for the Philosophers’ Stone. One French-American reads out a manifesto he is about to issue to the Latin Quarter; it proposes to establish a communistic colony of artists in Virginia, and there is a footnote to explain why he selects Virginia: ‘Art has never flourished twice in the same place. Art has never flourished in Virginia’ (CW3 265).
2An editors’ note explains what the Philosophers’ Stone is, refers to Strindberg’s occult and Swedenborgian interests, and admits that ‘the French Canadian with plans for a colony of artists in Virginia is untraced’ (CW3 480-81, n. 102). In this note I shall try to trace him, without forgetting that there were ‘two French-Americans’. I also trace the ‘manifesto’.
3Max Dauthendey (1867-1918), ‘a painter as well as a poet’, as the editors specify in another note (CW3 516, n. 15), writes in his autobiography2 that when he established himself in London early in 1894, he made friends, in the pension where he stayed in 24 Upper Woburn Place, with a couple of young American artists. James, who wanted to be a sculptor, was from New York; his wife Theodosia, aspiring to be a painter, was a native of San Francisco. After meeting in Paris, they had married in London. They were members of a magical order and had come from Paris to London in order to deepen their knowledge of secret science, and, before the German poet’s astonished eyes, they opened the doors of an unknown world. They read the works of Blake to him, they explained the chemistry of the stars and the life of the planets, and they put him in touch ‘with the Irish poet Yeats who lived in London at that time and belonged to the same secret society as themselves. This man, too, longed for new ideals’.3 Dauthendey recalls:
In the realms of the spirit, said Yeats, there are differences of force just like in the physical realms. He said he felt sure that the spirits of the old gods of his Irish home country, who had been driven away by the advance of Christianity, were still alive in the air above Ireland, and it was possible to call them and make them return’.4
4‘At that time’, the German poet records,
a play by Yeats was performed in the Drury Lane Theatre in London. The poet invited both the American couple and myself to attend the first performance. I remember that the play attracted the whole literary world of London […] But I didn’t understand anything of the play and I thought it was the spring air which made me close my eyes in spite of the action happening on the stage. The only thing I remember is a lady sitting in a dark room, in front of a big fire burning in a fireplace, and behind her a window, blue with the light of the moon. But what the lady spoke to the ghosts or to human beings didn’t enter my mind […] I felt a little ashamed when the Irish poet, tall, pale-faced, with black hair, asked us whether we had liked his play. I couldn’t find anything to say. Later, at home, sitting near the fireplace in the simple room of the Americans, waiting for the tea water to boil, we started talking about the spirits again.5
5Two years later, in February 1896, Dauthendey established himself in Paris. The American couple had returned to Paris, too, living now ‘in an avenue near the Eiffel Tower, in a studio with kitchen and bedroom’ (Gedankengut, vol. 2, p. 160). They gave him good advice when he decided to marry his Swedish girlfriend, lent him money for a trip to Germany, continued to talk about questions of occultism, and took him to visit,
at Neuilly, the last descendant of a Scottish king who lived in Paris and dedicated himself to Egyptology, staying with his wife in a beautiful house with garden, where on Sundays he received numerous ladies and gentlemen […] This same wise man, later, reestablished in Paris the ancient cult of Isis, and his wife became the priestess of Isis.6
6It is not difficult to recognize MacGregor Mathers, his wife Moina and the house, 87 Rue Mozart in Auteuil (not Neuilly), which they occupied since the summer of 1895 and which also served as the Golden Dawn’s Ahathoor Temple. The revived cult of Isis reached its culmination by a successful public performance in the Théâtre de la Bodinière in Paris, in March 1899.7
7The four of them—Dauthendey, his wife Annie Johansson, James and Theodosia—then conceived a project to found an artists’ colony, in order to escape from the capitalist and bourgeois society and find a way of living more in harmony with the rhythms of the cosmos. Artists’ colonies were being founded in many places at that time, from Worpswede in Germany to the Eagle’s Nest in Oregon. James elaborated a detailed project for the settlement, which corresponds to the manifesto mentioned by Yeats. The four friends considered a number of possible sites: Brittany, the Lake of Geneva, the French Riviera, Corsica, Spain, the South of the United States, California. The Dauthendeys tried Sicily, but they didn’t like it. In the spring of 1897, James proposed ‘New Carolina’ [sic]—a slip of Dauthendey’s pen, as James must have meant North Carolina, or perhaps—as according to Yeats—Virginia.8 But Dauthendey didn’t want to go to the United States, not even to North Carolina, so James changed the plan: the new destination was Mexico. In June, 1897, Dauthendey and his wife disembarked in Vera Cruz and travelled to the capital. But they didn’t like Mexico any more than they had liked Sicily. When they met James and Theodosia, who had arrived in Mexico City by a different route, Dauthendey explained that he couldn’t possibly stay. The Americans were disappointed and annoyed. The two couples separated forever. The Dauthendeys stayed in Mexico for five months before travelling back to Paris9
8Let us return to Yeats‘s ‘sitting in a café with two French-Americans’. This coffeehouse meeting took place most probably during his second stay in Paris in December 1896 or January 1897. He had known the two ‘French-Americans’ for almost two years. He had invited them when his one-act play The Land of Heart’s Desire was staged for the first time, as a curtain-raiser for John Todhunter’s A Comedy of Sighs, in the Avenue Theatre (in Northumberland Avenue, not in Drury Lane), on 29 March 1894. Dauthendey, number four at the coffee table, describes their friendship with himself and with Yeats in his autobiography, but he mentions the ‘Americans’, as he calls them, only by their first names. Their full names appear in a letter he wrote to them from Paris to Atlanta on 3 May 1897: they were James and Theodosia Durand.10 They were members, like Yeats himself, of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and disciples of MacGregor Mathers. The Membership List of the Order of the Golden Dawn lists the Durands (191st and 192nd respectively in its address book) as initiated into the Isis-Urania Temple in London, James as ‘Judah’ and Theodosia as ‘En Hakkore’.11 It gives their address at their initiation on 28 February 1894 as 11 Rue Boissinade [sic, actually ‘Boissonade’], Paris.12 On that day, Yeats was in Paris, attending the first night of Villiers De Lisle Adam’s Axel with Maud Gonne.13 He had been in Paris since 7 February, staying with Matherses, seeing Verlaine (and failing to see Mallarmé, who was in England), and, on 24 February, had acted as Hegemon or Keeper of the Portal at a Golden Dawn ceremony at the Matherses’ Ahathoor Temple. He returned to London on 29 February or shortly after (ChronY 32). Unless the Durands had been in London for some time before the date of their initiation (e.g., receiving instruction), it is possible that they had met Yeats for the first time at the Ahathoor Temple in Paris.
9James Madison Durand was the 63rd member to achieve the 5=6 grade on 7 June 1895. His unchanged motto, ‘Judah’ was inscribed in Hebrew on the Second Order Membership Roll on this occasion. Mrs Theodosia M. Durand had achieved the same grade on the same day, but the scribe, who entered her name first, mistook the date as the 5th, and then clumsily overwrote 7th onto the Roll. Her motto stands unchanged as ‘En Hakkore’.14 The reason for demission of both members is given as ‘away’, but no date is given. It would seem that later they had attended the Ahathoor Temple.
10Their membership in the Golden Dawn is confirmed by Ellic Howe, who explains that between June 1894 and November 1896, the Ahathoor Temple in Paris recruited eleven members, most of them expatriates from Britain and from the United States, and that it was also joined by two married couples who had already been initiated in England. One of these couples were James and Theodosia Durand.15 He specifies that the Durands by then lived in 156 Avenue de Suffren, which corresponds to Dauthendey’s ‘in an avenue near the Eiffel Tower’.16
11Their surname ‘Durand’ explains why Yeats should have remembered them as ‘French-Americans’, being of French origin: there is also a major concentration of the name in French Canada.17 Yeats’s French friend of 1896 and later, was his translator and reviewer, Henry-Durand Davray (see CL2 13 and n. 2, and passim), who had strong English connections throughout his life.
12Theodosia’s maiden name was Moore. She was a native of Santa Rosa, daughter of a judge, A. P. Moore, and of his wife Annie E. Moore, and sister of Virgil Moore, variously described as ‘former San Francisco newspaper writer’ and ‘widely traveled Kansas City resident and former U. S. commissioner to Alaska’.18
13If we wonder what became of these hopeful and ambitious young artists, the dictionary Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes provides the following entry:
14DURAND, Theodosia (1863-1949). Painter. Born in California on November 25, 1863. Mrs. Durand was a resident of San Francisco in 1916-21, Santa Rosa in 1929-30, and San Diego in the 1920s and 1930s. She died at Modesto (CA) State Hospital on March 15, 1949. Exhibited: SFAA. 1916, 1918 (paintings on cement); SFAA, 1925 (Oils); Calif. Industries Expo, San Diego, 1926; GGIE, 1939.19
15As for James Durand, Dauthendey provides some curious information about his family background: ‘The American’, he says, ‘owned two little houses in New York, and by renting them he could more or less live without having to confront extreme misery. Now he wanted to sell them. His maternal grandfather, the founder of the Tiffany glass factory in New York, was a rich man, and James expected later to receive a considerable heritage from him’.20 These details, too, find some confirmation in Ellic Howe’s book, which quotes two letters on astrological problems written by James Durand to Frederick Leigh Gardner, another member of the Golden Dawn, on 30 September and on 28 October 1895. These letters had to do, among other things, with ‘the problem of his grandfather’ s will and possible litigation […] Durand had cast a horoscope for the exact moment when the question about his grandfather’s will presented itself to him, but the answer was obscure’(Magicians, p. 156). On 28 October, James Durand wrote: ‘V. H. Soror Vestigia [Mrs Mathers] did a Tarot for me and the result of the lawsuit showed a victory for me, but rather an empty one’ (ibid.).
16According to the official record, Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902), the founder of the Tiffany Company, had four sons and two daughters from his marriage with Harriet Olivia Avery Young (1817-97), but none of his daughters married a Durand or had a grandson called James Durand.21 Perhaps he had a daughter from an extra-marital union. If that was so, James may have been her son, and litigation may have become necessary when he wished to be recognized as such. In that case, what would an ‘empty victory’ be? Could it mean that James was finally recognized as Tiffany’s grandson, but remained excluded from his grandfather’s will?
17James Durand’s major claim to immortality seems to consist in the document which Yeats calls a ‘manifesto’ and which according to Dauthendey was published in New York and in London, while he himself translated it into German and sent it to a monthly review in Germany.22 Following the lead of H. G. Wendt,23 K. W. Obrath,24 and Volker Zenk,25 I have found two published versions of this text: ‘Fondation d’une colonie d’artistes subvenant eux-mêmes à leurs besoins’, published in La Plume on 1 January 1897, and ‘The foundation of a colony of self-supporting artists\. Appeal’, published in The Arena (Boston) the same year. There are some slight differences between the English and the French versions (see Appendixes A and B), printed below on facing pages to facilitate close reading.26 Both versions of the manifesto were published anonymously, though the ‘Note by the editor of The Arena’ quotes a fragment of a letter by J. M. Durand, sent on 14 November 1896 from Paris, 203 Boulevard Raspail27 and explaining that the manuscript was composed by a ‘body of artists’ and that Durand had the honour of representing them.28
18If, as most likely, the coffee-house meeting of Yeats with the Durands took place in December 1896 or January 1897, and the French version of the manifesto was published in La Plume on 1 January 1897, the text Durand read out to Yeats was either to be published soon, or had just been published in Paris. And if, as Yeats writes, Durand wished to issue his manifesto to the Latin Quarter, publication in La Plume was the most efficient and also the most elegant way of doing it. During its existence in the years 1889-1914, this journal was the most important organ of the modernist generation of French poets, writers and artists. It was firmly anchored in the Latin Quarter, with its offices and exposition rooms in the Rue Bonaparte, its soirées every Saturday night in the smoky basement of the Café du Soleil d’Or (Boulevard Saint-Michel), and the more solemn banquets or dinners it offered on special occasions, in restaurants of a higher category, generally presided by a poet or writer of the older generation.
19Yeats must have been impressed because Durand’s manifesto was quite an elaborate document. Not many manifestos have footnotes, but this one does. The footnote he quotes from memory says: ‘Art has never flourished twice in the same place. Art has never flourished in Virginia’. Fn. 2 in the English version of the ‘appeal’ says: ‘As Art has rarely ever flourished in two countries in the same era, it is as if we must unite ourselves to the destiny of the place most worthy and favorable to Art’. This is a partial coincidence. In Yeats’s memory, ‘in the same place’ is replaced by ‘in the same era’; place is substituted for space. In fact the appeal contains no specific reference to a place which might be chosen for the artists’ colony, neither in its English nor in its French version. It seems natural that Yeats’s memory should have modified the text a little; but it is also possible, even probable, that Durand added the reference to Virginia when he read it out to him, or that Yeats chose, for his impressionistic ‘pictures… without date or order’, a sardonic touch of his own.
20Why did Durand publish his manifesto unsigned? Perhaps out of modesty and humility, virtues which, as the text of the manifesto shows, ranked high in his scale of values. Or perhaps, after many discussions with Theodosia, Dauthendey, Annie Johansson, and probably others whom we have not been able to identify, he was really convinced that the text was a collective production of a group of artists. Or wished it to seem as such.
21It is more difficult to determine how far the colony of artists Durand proposed to establish can be qualified as ‘socialistic’ (editor of The Arena29), or as ‘communistic’ (Yeats), or as plain ‘communist’ (Franz Blei30). There are some striking affinities between Durand’s project and Brook Farm, the most celebrated utopian community of America, founded by George and Sophia Ripley, inspired by the ideals of Transcendentalism, and operating in the years 1841-47 at West Roxbury, situated about eight miles from Boston, Massachusetts. Henry James, who thought himself the first to write extendedly about Brook Farm, writes in his biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne: ‘The thing was the experiment of a coterie—it was unusual, unfashionable, unsuccessful. It was, as would then have been said, an amusement of the Transcendentalists—a harmless effusion of Radicalism’.31
22The founders of Brook Farm believed that by pooling labour they could sustain the community and still have time for literary and scientific pursuits. George Ripley’s object was ‘to insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor than now exists; to combine the thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual’.32 The official name of Brook Farm was ‘Institute of Agriculture and Education’, and its associates were active as farmers, but also as teachers in a boarding school which comprised all levels, from an infant programme to the preparation for college. Instruction in the area of ‘Belles Lettres’, for example, included Homer’s Iliad, Virgil’ Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Goethe’s Faust, Schillers’s Song of the Bell, and the plays of Racine and Molière, all of these studied in their original language; there was also an emphasis on music and dance.33 Whatever education had been in Brook Farm; artistic practice was to be in Durand’s projected colony. According to the manifesto, by ‘giving part of our lives… to raising our own sheep and cows, catching our own fish, and planting our own corn, even in a wilderness of modern civilization’, the artists and poets settling in it would not only be able to sustain themselves and escape the laws of capitalist society, but also have enough space, time, energy, and independence to follow their artistic vocation. Physical labour was perceived, both in Brook Farm and in Durand’s plan, as a condition of mental well-being and a stimulus for artistic creativity. By tilling the field in the morning and painting, sculpting or writing poetry in the afternoon, or vice versa, the artist in the projected colony seeks to abolish, in a way, the division of labor dominant in modern society, and hence, the alienation of man. This was the theory. In practice, however, a ‘disproportionate amount of time… had to be devoted to physical rather than intellectual labors’; the work-day was of ten hours in summer and eight hours in winter.34 Nathaniel Hawthorne, after living and toiling at Brook Farm from April to November of 1841, has seriously questioned the possibility of a spiritualization of labour:
The clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. Our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening. Intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of bodily exercise. The yeoman and the scholar […] are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into one substance’.35
23Brook Farm, the founder of which had been a Minister in the Boston Unitarian church, was variously described by its founders as ‘city of God’ or as ‘A Glimpse of Christ’ s Idea of Society’; however, religious freedom was essential to its program. Likewise in Durand’s manifesto, ‘Every artist shall have perfect liberty for his own ideas of Art, his religious belief or opinions, and in his domestic life’. Brook Farm proposed and practised the emancipation of women, which is also an element in Durand’s artist’s colony:
There shall be a perfect equality between women and men, and women shall have a voice in all matters […]. A wife shall feel herself an independent self-supporting artist, choosing a manual occupation adapted to her physical strength, not depending on her husband; nor should he impose upon her the never-accounted-for small duties of the household.
24Dauthendey was very much impressed by the way James Durand practised this principle in his everyday life with Theodosia.36 George Ripley ‘probably hoped that Brook Farm in its development would grow into a model community, and become the germ or nucleus of a new and better social organization’.37 Likewise, Durand imagines that ‘when the great nations shall have dashed themselves to pieces on the rocks they have formed around them, we will announce the new age of Spirituality and the Regeneration of the World’. Durand’s manifesto, then, was communistic in the same sense that Transcendentalism was.
25A few years after the closing down of Brook Farm, Nathaniel Hawthorne satirized it rather benevolently in his novel The Blithedale Romance. Durand’s project was not even honoured by a satire; ‘the founding of the colony’, as Wendt says, ‘came to naught’ (Dauthendey, p. 39, n. 32). What was the cause of this failure? My view would be that the main cause for this failure was the selection of Mexico as the site of the settlement. Durand stipulates, as one of the conditions for the success of the artists’ colony,
…union by fraternal sympathy with the people of a country already settled, having an Art future, where the soil shall favor the easy raising of food; with landscapes varied by hills, plateaus, woods, and watercourses; not too far inland.
26These sensible political and geographical conditions were not met by Mexico. The solemn beauty of its deserts, forests, and mountains, and the real or potential fertility of its soil, did not convince the future colonists. If we read Dauthendey, the only one of the little group whose first impressions of the land of the Aztecs have been preserved, we find that cacti, mosquitoes, and vultures are the recurrent images of his travelogue, summing up the forbidding, infertile, and hostile nature of the country. Furthermore, heavily armed men at every corner, adventurers approaching the travelers to swindle them out of their money, create the impression of a country most imperfectly ‘settled’ (‘policé’, i.e. civilized, educated, in the French version). This impression was confirmed by the German consul, who, when the Dauthendeys finally consulted him, explained that
the interior of the country is very dangerous for foreigners. There are Spanish bandits who live in the Indian villages, and when they suppose someone has money, they may easily ambush and shoot him from behind. In this lawless country nobody troubles about a dead man. The murderer is never found. There are too many murders, and it would be too much work for the police to follow up all the murders which happen in far-away places. However, if we really wanted to cultivate some land and live peacefully in this country, we would have to be at least ten men and ten women, and even then it would be dangerous if we didn’t speak the language and were no Catholics, for the Spaniards are very severe and fanatic in questions of religion.38
27The foundation of Brook Farm had been based on a joint stock company formed in 1841 by George Ripley and his wife along with ten other initial investors..39 Durand, for his part, counted, to obtain the terrain for his projected community, on
finding […] some one sympathetic to Art, who will provide land ready and cleared for cultivation, and small, simple dwellings, consisting of a room for sleeping, a room for eating, and a studio or study; also a few sheep, cows, and horses, and some farming implements,—enough to start with. In return for his faith and sympathy, poets, writers, and musicians will dedicate their poems and compositions, and sculptors and painters give their works in trust to him.
28In other words, Durand’s artists’ colony needed a Maecenas. The necessity to find some benevolent rich man was always present in the deliberations of the four friends. In the beginning, Dauthendey says, he would have preferred settling in Germany; the Durands in the US; and he had to admit that in the US it would be easier to find some unoccupied land and some sympathetic millionaires.40 In Paris, the four friends, after eliminating England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium and France, as possible sites for the colony, arrive at the following conclusion:
So what remains is America. North America. Not the business world of New York and Chicago, but south of Washington there is a country with a climate as mild as France. Six hours by train from Washington. Mountains, forests, rivers and a marvellous climate. The air from the ‘Blue Mountains’ makes the summers cool, the land has been long cultivated, there are plenty of animals in the forests and in the rivers. Vanderbilt there has 80.000 acres of land. He will lend us land for the future Colony’.41
29‘Vanderbilt’ is undoubtedly George W. Vanderbilt, youngest son of William H. Vanderbilt and grandson of ‘Commodore’ Cornelius Vanderbilt, who enjoyed visiting western North Carolina for its mild climate and spectacular scenery. During a visit in the winter of 1888, he was inspired by a view from Asheville so spectacular that he purchased 125,000 acres of land to create his country home of Biltmore, with a double goal ‘to house the monumental works of art he had been acquiring on his trips abroad’ and ‘to promote scientific forestry and farming’.42 The landscape he chose for his new home corresponds to the one described in Durand’s manuscript:
The spot where his 5000 acre farm is situated is as beautiful as one may hope to see. On the broad plateau that extends from the Blue Ridge to the Alleghany Mountains, the general level of which is near to 2000 feet above the sea and surrounded by mountain peaks more lofty than any east of the Rockies, the place naturally is a sort of paradise. […] From his library window Mr. Vanderbilt can see the Blue Ridge, the Alleghanies and their tributary mountain ranges rising and stretching away in the distance. He can see Mount Pisgah raising its pine clad head more than 6000 feet above the plateau. Black Dome, Clingman’s Dome, Mitchell’s Peak and a score or more of giants are near by. Between these, like silver threads, run the French Broad, the Hiawassee and near half a dozen other rivers. He may see if he wishes, the spots over in the Tennessee Mountains that have been made in a way famous by the charming stories of Charles Egbert Craddock.43
30It is not known whether Durand and his friends talked or wrote to George W. Vanderbilt, though the phrase ‘He will lend us land’ sounds as if they had received some sort of promise from him. There were certainly many affinities between them. It is known that in his youth,
he spent his time among his books, reading, studying philosophy, becoming fluent in eight foreign languages, and learning the histories of all the paintings in his father’s gallery.44
31At Biltmore,
George led the life of a gentleman farmer, in his spare time studying the plants, birds, and animals of his principality, learning various dialects of American Indian tribes, and, for some obscure reason, translating contemporary literature into ancient Greek.45
32Anyway, his immense fortune as well as his passion for art and for agroscience would have made him an ideal partner for Durand’s project, at least during the years 1889–95 (construction of Biltmore) and 1896–1900 (prosperity of Biltmore). By 1900, he was running out of money, and by the time of his death in 1914 his fortune had been considerably diminished.
33In Mexico, only the president could have assumed the role of Maecenas. In fact, the Durands arrived carrying a letter of recommendation for Porfirio Díaz.46 When the Dauthendeys were received by him, he apparently offered to sell them cheaply all the land they wanted.47 Although establishing colonies of immigrants was an essential part of Díaz’s economic policy, the image of ‘Art Befriender’ sits uncomfortably upon the ageing caudillo, already three times reelected by 1897.
34Dauthendey must have realized this. He was shocked when, during the celebrations on Independence Day (16 September 1897), a drunken man’s clumsy attempt on the person of Porfirio Díaz was followed by a police assassination, causing one of the major political scandals in Mexican history. Claude Dumas has resumed the case:
Following the custom on that day, the official procession walked from the Government Palace to the Alameda where the ceremony in memory of the Independence was celebrated. When the President, accompanied by his ministers and his high officials, arrived at the Alameda place, an individual emerged from the crowd, crossed the barrier formed by the cadets of the Chapultepec Military School, and struck the President on the head with an unidentified object. The man, whose name was Arnulfo Aguero, was arrested immediately and taken into custody. Porfirio Díaz, absolutely unscathed, then continued on his way and presided the planned ceremonies as usual. The emotions aroused by this event had hardly calmed down when it was known that the author of that strange attack had been stabbed to death by a group of unknown persons shouting ‘Long live Porfirio Díaz!’, when he was in a room of the central police station, immobilized by a straitjacket. The subsequent investigation proved rapidly that this assassination had been committed by the police itself, and ordered by its General Inspector, Eduardo Velázquez, with the help of various inspectors under his orders. Velázquez was imprisoned and a few days later found dead in prison with a pistol in his hand. In the subsequent trial, from 15 to 22 November, almost all the men responsible for the assassination of Arroyo were condemned to death; but when they appealed, the matter was put off, and after three years, the condemned men were acquitted, and even returned to occupy important official positions.48
35The political crisis provoked by the so-called ‘asunto Arroyo’ threatened to disrupt the delicate balance of power in the country. Thirteen years later, Díaz’s protracted dictatorship was swept away by a formidable revolution. Dauthendey used his own Mexican adventure and the elements of the so-called ‘Arroyo scandal’ for his successful novel Raubmenschen (Men of Prey).
36Both the Brook Farm utopia, which enjoyed six years of reality, and Durand’s artists’ community, which remained a dream, were transformed into novels—the first one by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the second one by Max Dauthendey. As for James Durand, he still remains something of an enigma. Nothing is known today about his works of art and very little about his life; all that remains of him is the ‘manifesto’ he read out to Yeats one day, at a coffee-house table in Paris.
37The Utopia that is envisaged in ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ is a very different concept from that envisaged by Durand, not least because it envisages a solitary existence. And while Yeats had experienced F. J. Dicks’s Theosophical commune in Ely Place, Dublin in 1891–92 (see CW3 193ff.), it had been a very urban—if earnest and idealistic—organisation. We may surmise from the handling of the anecdote that the Yeats who published The Trembling of the Veil in 1922, recalled the young poet in the Latin quarter with affectionate distance.
Annexe
APPENDIX A
THE FOUNDATION OF A COLONY OF SELF-SUPPORTING ARTISTS. APPEAL.49
MEN AND WOMEN ARTISTS
The time has come when we poets, painters, sculptors, and musicians must unite to free ourselves and Art from the overwhelming spirit of the age,—Commercialism and Sensuality.
The strong undercurrent of idealism impels us to become the prophets whose mission it is to herald the dawn of a new age of Heroism and Poetry which shall triumph over and check the further reign of a barbarous civilization.
We have suffered long enough in humility; we have begged our bread too often of editors, critics, and connoisseurs—Art speculators, who are the greatest hinderers of idealism, and have nothing to do with Art but to debase it; we will no longer sell our birthright. Those among us who have no means of sustenance need no longer be cut off from answering the voice of their soul. We must come together, as the strongest men and women of other nations when oppressed have done before, becoming intellectual pioneers of a new state.
To realize fully the hour, compare the spirit of Art, politics, and enlightenment of to-day with that of any other age. If we are artists we must despise our cities, our false civilization, and our cold, spiritless religions.
Let us, artists of all nations, withdraw ourselves from their midst, unmindful or our nationality and our present customs, in which we can have but little pride, estranged as we are from our own kind. As artists, we are brothers, and the difference in nationality cannot separate us. We will leave exhibitions, salons, and theatres (markets made for speculations) to journey men and hirelings who are willing to pamper the vulgar taste of the bourgeoisie. Art is ignored in this
APPENDIX B
FONDATION D’UNE COLONIE D’ARTISTES SUBVENANT EUX-MÊMES A LEURS BESOINS50
Artistes, homes et femmes.
Poètes, peintres, sculpteurs et compositeurs de musique, le moment est venu de nous unir et de délivrer l’Art et nous-mêmes de l’esprit envahisseur de ce temps tout de Mercantilisme et de Sensualité.
Le mouvement latent d’idéalisme nous pousse à être ceux dont la mission est d’annoncer l’aube d’un âge nouveau tout à l’Héroïsme et à la Poésie qui doit triompher de la haine et mettre trêve brusquement au règne d’une civilisation barbare.
Voici assez longtemps que nous souffrons dans l’humiliation; trop souvent, nous avons mendié notre pain auprès des éditeurs, des critiques, des amateurs et des différents intermédiaires,—les spéculateurs de l’Art; nous ne voulons plus vendre le meilleur de nous-mêmes. Ceux qui, parmi nous, n’ont pas le moyen de vivre ne peuvent guère répondre aux voies de leur âme. Liguons-nous, comme firent les femmes et les hommes des autres nations lorsqu’ils furent opprimés, et devenons les pionniers intellectuels du nouvel âge.
Afin de mieux comprendre notre époque, comparez l’esprit de l’Art actuel avec celui de jadis, la société et l’éducation d’aujourd’hui avec celles du passé. Si nous sommes artistes, nous devons dédaigner nos cités, notre fausse civilisation et nos religions sans vie.
Artistes de toutes les nations, retirons-nous de ce milieu, sans nous arrêter trop à notre nationalité et aux mœurs actuelles, dont nous sommes peu fiers, éloignés comme nous le sommes de nos semblables. Comme artistes, nous sommes frères, et les différences de nationalités ne peuvent nous séparer. Nous laisserons les expositions, les salons et les théâtres (marchés créés pour les spéculations) aux manœuvres et aux salariés qui sont contents de flatter les goûts vulgaires de la bourgeoisie. L’Art est ignoré dans cet âge si peu initié age, so uninitiated in divine things; and, being ahead of the age, we cannot look to it for support. To wait for destiny to help us is perhaps never to realize our hopes. There are those who have said they will die for Art; but we will live for it. Separated, we can do nothing against the reign of ignorance; scattered, our works will be destroyed, with the places unworthy of them, by the wars and revolutions which are already at hand.
Let us unite and return to the natural life of primitive men of the soil, which latter, as artists, we love; giving part of our lives (for Art’s sake) to raising our own sheep and cows, catching our own fish, and planting our own corn, even in a wilderness of modern civilization; so keeping our intellects sacred to our Art and to the higher plane, and, like other laborers, dedicating our hands to the raising of our own food, that our bodies may become the stronger and more beautiful vehicles for our souls.
We are without experience, but we are intelligent women and men, not easily daunted, and are ready to study the most advanced methods and experiments, being prepared for failures at the first. If we are artists, we can dare. We will make our lives works of Art; like Hercules, we are ready to perform the labors of life. Though homeless, though countryless, though moneyless, though men naked cast on the earth, we are artists.
We will offer ourselves to the people whose country we shall inhabit, and will be ruled by their laws in force for aliens, living peacefully among them and speaking their language among ourselves. So may we make for ourselves an ark for Art; and when the great nations shall have dashed themselves to pieces on the rocks they have formed around them, we will announce the new age of Spirituality and the Regeneration of the World.
Practical.—As artists, to realize our ideals we must be practical women and men, and a natural mode of life is our first step.
Before the foundation of a colony which is to be the expression of Art and Ideal Life can be laid, a triple union must be established:
I. A union among young idealists, sympathetic by nature, having studied the Art of older nations and having tried to create works as aux choses divines; et de cet âge dont nous ne sommes déjà plus, nous ne pouvons attendre aucun secours. Attendre que le destin nous aide, c’est risquer de ne jamais réaliser nos désirs. Certains disent qu’ils veulent mourir pour l’Art; nous, nous voulons vivre pour lui. Séparés, nous ne pouvons rien contre le règne de l’ignorance; dispersés, nos œuvres, placées indignement, seront détruites par les guerres et les révolutions déjà à nos portes. Unissons-nous, et retournons à cette vie naturelle qui attirait les hommes vers le sol; le sol que nous, artistes, nous aimons; consacrons une part de notre vie, pour l’amour de l’Art, à l’élevage de nos moutons et de nos vaches, à la pêche de nos poissons, à la plantation de notre maïs, même dans la brousse de la civilisation moderne; consacrons ainsi notre esprit à l’Art et au plan supérieur, et, comme les autres laboureurs, donnons nos mains à la production de notre nourriture et que nos corps deviennent de plus forts et de plus beaux véhicules de nos âmes.
Nous sommes sans expérience, mais nous sommes les hommes et les femmes intelligents, peu facilement détournés, prêts à étudier les méthodes et les expérimentations les plus avancées, préparés aux échecs de la première heure. Nous ne sommes pas artistes si nous ne savons oser. Nous ferons de nos vies des œuvres d’art; comme Hercule, nous sommes prêts à accomplir les labeurs de la vie. Quoique sans foyer, sans pays, sans fortune, quoique jetés nus sur la terre, nous sommes artistes. Nous nous offrirons au peuple du pays où nous habiterons, et nous accepterons de vivre sous les lois qui concernent les étrangers, demeurant paisiblement parmi cette nation et usant de sa langue dans notre vie sociale. Ainsi construirons-nous une arche pour l’Art: et quand les grandes nations se seront brisées contre les rochers qu’elles ont formés autour d’elles, nous annoncerons au monde le nouvel âge de Spiritualité et de Régénérescence.
Partie pratique.—Pour réaliser notre idéal d’artistes, nous devons, nous aussi, devenir des femmes et des hommes pratiques, et commencer par vivre tout à fait près de la nature.
Avant la fondation d’une colonie qui soit l’expression de l’Art et de la vie idéale, il faut qu’une triple union soit établie.
1° L’union entre les jeunes idéalistes, attirés par une sympathie réciproque, ayant étudié l’art des nations du passé, et ayant essayé, high in inspiration and as perfect in execution and external beauty, though new in poetic form, who know that the power to realize this is a gift from their own Divine source, whose expression, Art, should be as freely re-given to the world, and not sold any more than Love and Grace can be; those, namely, who are willing to live to execute and Art for Art’s sake alone, knowing that Art can never be the product of one man; renouncing egoism, expecting no other reward than the joy of realizing the highest aspiration of their soul, and to this end giving up part of their hours to labor in the fields for their food, which labor has no corruption for the spirit.
II. A union with a mild but energetic climate, having a balance of sunshine, wind, and rain.51
III. A union by fraternal sympathy with the people of a country already settled, having an Art future, where the soil shall favor the easy raising of food; with landscapes varied by hills, plateaus, woods, and watercourses; not too far inland.52
A complete natural and universal scheme by which a man can live for his ideals, free from the struggle against hunger and want, must be a reflection of the idea intended by the Eternal Mind. Such a plan assumes that he shall have enough land at his disposal to meet his simple, natural requirements, as primitive man receives it, together with the sun and the rain, from Nature,—free. To obtain such land in a country having a near Art future, that is, where there is already some enlightenment, necessitates the finding of some one sympathetic to Art, who will provide land ready and cleared for cultivation, and small, simple dwellings, consisting of a room for sleeping, a room for eating, and a studio or study; also a few sheep, cows, and horses, and some farming implements,—enough to start with.
quoique nouveaux dans la conception poétique, de créer des œuvres d’aussi haute inspiration et d’exécution aussi complète; les idéalistes qui savent que la puissance d’œuvrer est un don de leur propre source divine, dont son expression, l’Art, doit être aussi librement redonnée au monde que ce don a été donné, et n’être pas vendue plus que l’Amour ou la Grâce; ces idéalistes qui sont décidés à vivre dans le but exclusif d’exécuter l’Art pour l’amour de l’Art sachant aussi que l’Art ne peut être le produit d’un seul homme, n’attendant d’autre récompense que la joie de réaliser les plus hautes aspirations de leur âme, consacrant, pour ce faire, une partie de leurs heures au travail des champs afin d’assurer leur vie matérielle, ce travail n’ayant aucune corruption pour l’esprit.
2° L’union avec un climat doux, mais vivifiant, où règnent harmonieusement le soleil, le vent et la pluie.53
3° L’union par la sympathie fraternelle avec le peuple d’un pays déjà policé, ayant un avenir artistique, où le sol favorise la production nécessaire à la vie où se trouvent des paysages variés par des collines, des plateaux, des bois et des eaux, ni trop près, ni trop loin de la mer.54
Un système complet, naturel et universel par lequel on peut vivre pour cet idéal, délivré de la lutte contre le besoin, doit être un reflet de l’esprit de l’Éternel. Un tel plan implique que l’homme aura à sa disposition aussi librement que le soleil et la pluie, un terrain qui suffise à sa vie simple et naturelle, ainsi qu’il en a toujours été pour les premiers occupants d’un pays. Pour obtenir ce terrain dans un pays ayant un prochain avenir artistique, c’est-à-dire où se trouve déjà une formation, il est nécessaire de trouver une personne dévouée à l’Art qui nous fournisse les terres prêtes pour la culture, de petites demeures composées de trois petites pièces simples, pour coucher, manger et œuvrer; des moutons, des vaches, quelques chevaux, des outils de fermiers, bref, le nécessaire pour commencer.
In return for his faith and sympathy, poets, writers, and musicians will dedicate their poems and compositions, and sculptors and painters give their works in trust to him, to be placed in a temple on his land, made for them, to be open at times to his countrymen. Neither he nor his heirs—against whom he should secure us regarding the land—should have any power in our government, nor right to dispose of or remove the works we commit to his charge. We and our children shall have no claim on the land or other property; we shall both be bound by the sacred bonds of Art and honor.
Coöperative System.—For every colonist to have as much time daily as possible for the work of his soul, it is imperative to cooperate to produce food with the least labor possible, the labor being divided as equally through the four seasons as may be, the various kinds of work being distributed according to physique, natural preference, experience, and capability. All idea of producing that which can be obtained cheaper outside, or requiring the learning of a trade or the use of expensive machinery, should naturally be abandoned. Our crops and supplies should be limited to our exact needs to live frugally but well. A poet, concentrated on his work for four or five hours, may find more relaxation in the heavy labor of the fields, while a sculptor would perhaps be best suited to lighter work; both would do quickest and easiest that which is most opposite to their higher work.
There are days when the healthy brain-worker, incapacitated for his work, could do the labor for another who was profiting by an hour of inspiration, or while his own crops were ripening.
As one man’s abstention from his higher work is worth another’s, time shall become the tender for the colony. Our disdain for money will be sufficient to exclude it from circulation among us. The value of any product shall be reckoned by counting the time spent in its production, and a book shall be kept in which shall be recorded in a peculiar fashion the exact time spent each day over such product, and under each head the date of commencing. A yellow circle (O), symbolizing a day’s cycle, from sunrise to sunrise, might represent twenty-four hours; an arc (⌒) one hour, and a point (.) five minutes.
Pour sa foi et sa sympathie, les poètes, compositeurs de musique, lui dédieraient leurs poèmes et leurs compositions, les sculpteurs et les peintres lui offriraient leurs œuvres en hommage; ces œuvres seraient placées dans un temple construit pour elles, sur sa terre et ouvert gracieusement de temps à autre aux visiteurs. Ni lui, ni ses héritiers, contre les prétentions possibles desquels il doit assurer ces biens, n’aura aucun pouvoir sur notre gouvernement, ni le droit de disposer de nos œuvres commises à sa charge. Nous et nos enfants n’aurons aucun droit sus les terrains et autres biens mis à notre disposition. Nous serons liés par les liens sacrés de l’Art et de l’honneur.
Système de coopération.—Pour que chaque artiste dispose quotidiennement de la plus grande somme de temps possible afin d’œuvrer selon son âme, la nécessité s’impose pour lui de coopérer aux indispensables travaux matériels en un nombre d’heures infime, le labeur étant réparti aussi également que possible dans les quatre saisons, les différentes sortes de travaux étant distribués selon la force physique, les préférences naturelles, l’expérience et le talent. Toute idée de produire ce qui peut être obtenu à meilleur marché au dehors, ou ce qui demande l’apprentissage d’un métier, ou ce qui nécessite l’emploi de machines coûteuses, doit être naturellement abandonnée. Nos récoltes et nos provisions seront limitées selon nos besoins exacts de vie frugale, mais réconfortante. Un poète tout à son œuvre pendant trois ou quatre heures trouvera une diversion dans le dur labeur des champs, tandis qu’un sculpteur serait peut-être mieux approprié à un travail moins pénible; le travail que tous les deux feront aisément, facilement, sera le plus opposé à leur travail artistique.
Les jours où un cérébral sain se trouverait incapable de travailler à son œuvre, il pourrait accomplir le travail d’un autre, inspiré à cette heure ou pendant que ses propres récoltes mûriraient.
Comme l’heure qu’un homme prélève sur son travail spirituel vaut l’heure d’un autre, le temps sera considéré comme valeur type pour la colonie. Notre dédain pour l’argent exclura ce métal de notre milieu. La valeur d’un produit quelconque sera établie d’après le temps dépensé pour sa production, et ce laps de temps sera noté sur un livre d’une manière particulière, la date du commencement d’un travail étant marquée sous l’indication de ce travail. Un cercle jaune symbolisant la durée d’une journée, du soleil levant à l’aube du lendemain, pourra représenter vingt-quatre heures; un arc, une heure; un point, cinq
Thus, the colonist producing flour shall plant a field of wheat sufficient for one season and sowing for the next, recording the actual time spent each day on the grain, from the time of breaking the soil to the grinding and putting into sacks. The total hours, divided by the amount of flour, will give the value of flour in hours for that season.
A second book might be used to record hours of provision given and received; thus, for three hours of corn, the colonist shall receive the same number of hours of another commodity, in this way carrying on a system of exchange and cancellation. Also, when one colonist assists another, his hours shall be credited to him.
Meat, Fowls, Milk, Butter, and Eggs.—Pasturing a small flock of sheep and keeping of pigs (which may be butchered outside by a butcher for a small share in the meat), raising of fowls and eggs, care of two cows, their milking and making of butter, would give employment to one or more families.
The Raising of Vegetables, Fruit, and Grain would give employment to a second colonist. The last-named could be ground by a small wind-or water-mill.
Fishing, the Making of Wine, Cider, or Beer, and Washing (by the aid of a small machine) to another; Cooking, Baking of Bread, Preserving of Fruits, Preparing of Wood for Fuel, to another; Printing of Manuscripts, Making of Colors, Repairing of Tools, Carpentering, etc., to another.
In order to avoid the repetition of cooking and dish-washing in each household, these may be done in a special place built for the purpose, with large oven, etc., situated within easy reach of every family. A large quantity and variety of vegetables, or other simple dishes, may be prepared there, and each colonist can send in his own meat when he requires it, the person in charge attending to the cooking. Dishes may be collected and washed all together by a quick process, and be returned to their owners in a small hand-wagon.55
minutes. Ainsi l’artiste sociétaire chargé de produire la farine, après avoir planté un champ de blé suffisant pour une saison et semé pour la saison suivante, marquera le temps dépensé chaque jour à propos de toutes ses besognes, depuis le labourage du sol jusqu ‘à la réduction en farine du grain et à sa mise en sac. La somme totale des heures ainsi employées divisée par la quantité de farine produite, donnera en heures la valeur de la farine pour cette saison-là.
Un deuxième livre pourrait servir à marquer les heures de provisions données et reçues; ainsi pour trois heures de maïs, un artiste sociétaire recevrait trois heures d’un autre produit; de cette manière s’établirait un système d’échange et d’annulation. Ainsi quand un artiste sociétaire assisterait un de ses confrères, ses heures seraient créditées à celui-ci. Viande, volailles, lait, beurre et œufs.—L’élevage des moutons et des porcs, les uns et les autres pouvant être tués par un boucher du dehors, lequel recevrait une parte de cette viande comme rétribution, l’élevage des poules, les soins à donner aux vaches, la fabrication du beurre, pourraient occuper une ou plusieurs familles. La culture des légumes, des fruits, des grains pourrait occuper un deuxième groupe de sociétaires. Les grains seraient moulus par un petit moulin à eau ou à vent.
La pêche, la fabrication du vin, du cidre ou de la bière, le blanchissage, à l’aide d’une petite machine, seraient le lot d’autres familles. La cuisine, la boulangerie, la conserve des fruits, la préparation du bois à brûler, autant d’emplois pour divers sociétaires; l’imprimerie des manuscrits, la fabrication des couleurs, la réparation des outils, la charpente, etc., autant de besognes à se partager.
Afin d’éviter à chaque ménage les longueurs inévitables de la cuisine journalière, l’alimentation générale pourrait être faite sur un grand four, dans un emplacement spécial choisi au mieux de la commodité de tous. Des légumes variés et d’autres plats simples pourraient y être préparés, et chaque sociétaire pourrait à son gré envoyer son plat de viande à la personne chargée des apprêts. La vaisselle et les couverts, nettoyés en masse par un procédé simple, seraient rendus ensuite à leurs propriétaires.56
Clothes.—A simple, natural, practical, and ornamental dress can be adopted by the colony; practical as to washing and durability. The cutting and sewing by machines of such costumes, as well as repairing, may be undertaken by one or more colonists, who would prefer such work to outdoor labor.
We shall be within easy communication with a doctor in case of need. With the simple, ready medicines and the experience of those among us, we shall be able to provide for any accident or emergency.
Résumé.—By returning to a simple, natural life; by wisely-disposed labor, equally distributed throughout the seasons, we can easily earn our simple, natural bread. Such sustained muscular activity as is necessary for the continued equilibrium of a great ideal worker to produce works of power and intellectual brawn (which is now the common need) will be enough to earn for him this bread and his liberty. Like the birds, not laying up food in barns, he would be free to follow the flights of his soul. The man and woman who go out to the fields, after hours of concentrated brain work, will be refreshed by the change of work, rather than fatigued. Such a regime means untiring activity, and Art.
Even those whom fortune has placed beyond the necessity of earning their bread, will know a nobler manhood for so doing, and will lessen the difficulties of the others by increasing the number of workers. Everyone who makes his own life a heroism strengthens his Art. Only a vigorous life and body can know and create a vigorous, lasting Art.
Our fields will be adjoining, our houses set within them; we shall have no walls nor streets, no barriers of civilization between us. Our gatherings will be on the sward in the shade of circling trees, to sing our poems and our praise. Here we shall recount the labors of the day; we shall become as the heroes of our works.
The painter and the sculptor will have a habitation for their works in a temple of their own conception; the musician and the poet will there give their own compositions and dramas. The poet will have his works translated and printed for his brothers and for the country of his adoption. The earth will be to us a more harmonious creating-
Vêtements.—Un costume simple, naturel, pratique et décoratif pour hommes, femmes et enfants, pourrait être adopté par la Colonie; pratique, facile à nettoyer et de longue durée.
La coupe de ces costumes et leur couture à la machine, leurs réparations, pourraient être entreprises par les personnes préférant cet ouvrage au travail en plein air.57
Résumé.—En revenant à la vie simple et naturelle, avec un travail organisé judicieusement, distribué également entre les saisons, nous pouvons facilement produire notre subsistance. Une telle activité physique incessante, si nécessaire au grand travailleur idéaliste pour qu’il conserve son équilibre et produise des œuvres de haute puissance intellectuelle (un des grands besoins de ce temps), suffira pour lui assurer le pain et la liberté. Comme les oiseaux, il ne réservera pas de nourriture pour l’avenir, plus libre sera-t-il ainsi de suivre les envols de son âme. Celui, homme ou femme, qui s’en ira aux champs, après des heures de concentration, sera ranimé plutôt que fatigué par ce changement de travail. Un tel régime engendre une activité que rien ne lasse et fait renaître l’art dans toute sa pureté.
Même ceux que le destin a placés hors de la nécessité de gagner leur pain connaîtront des sentiments plus humains et plus généreux en travaillant ainsi, et diminueront les difficultés des autres en augmentant le nombre des travailleurs. Tout homme qui héroïse sa propre vie rend son art plus puissant. Car, seule, l’âme héroïque dans un corps vigoureux peut sentir et créer un art vigoureux et impérissable.
Nos champs se toucheront tous, s’étendant autour de nos demeures, sans murs, sans rues ni barrières de civilisations. Nous nous assemblerons sous les ombrages des clairières pour exécuter notre musique et chanter nos poèmes. Là, nous nous conterons nos travaux esthétiques du jour, nous deviendrons comme les héros de nos œuvres.
Le peintre et le sculpteur auront un vrai sanctuaire pour leurs œuvres dans un temple conçu par eux. Le musicien et le poète y entendront leurs compositions et leurs drames. Le poète aura ses place, where we may unite in one voice of praise to the Supreme Creator who has chosen us as his imitators.
Abiding by the laws of the country and governed among ourselves by Art, Fraternity, and Forbearance, ever crushing down selfhood within us, we should ride over many of the complications of life and bring nearer the realization of our ideals.
As the rays of the seven colors unite and form white, so, by the exchange of ideas and an amalgamation of the fittest of passing nations, we shall bring back an Art of eternal ideas born of Divine Inspiration and clothed in forms of pure intellectual beauty and of translucent imagination.
Subject to the laws of evolution bringing the downfall of commerce, the people of our adopted country will be raised to a union with Art, thus laying the foundation of a new faith and civilization, where wisdom reigns and erects monuments of beauty, and where the artist is priest.
“If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me”.
Government.—Every artist shall have perfect liberty for his own ideas of Art, his religious belief or opinions, and in his domestic life. But as a colonist he shall be governed by Three Primordial Ideas, by the recognition of which any artist can claim the right to apply for admission to the colony. These shall be the unchanging rulers of the colony, without which it does not exist.
I. To unite to create, individually and jointly, an Art for Art’s sake, which is to express the highest aspiration of his soul, renouncing all egoism and distinction.
II. To devote part of the day to manual labor, so as to become self-supporting.
III. To crush down all selfishness, jealousy, envy, malice, and discord, and to live as far as possible the noble life of an artist.
Every artist should uphold the colony flag symbolic of these three ideas, which is to plant the symbol of Art in the land. A border œuvres traduites et imprimées pour ses frères et pour le pays de son adoption. La terre sera pour nous, créateurs passagers, un champ d’action plus harmonieux où nous unirons nos voix, confondues en une seule louange au Créateur suprême qui nous a choisis comme ses imitateurs.
Soumis aux lois du pays et gouvernés entre nous par l’Art, la fraternité et la charité, faisant taire en nous l’amour de soi-même, nous nous élèverons au-dessus des difficultés de la vie et plus près de notre idéal.
De même que les rayons de sept couleurs produisent le blanc par leur union, de même, par l’échange des idées et l’amalgame des plus dignes d’entre les nations mourantes, nous ferons revivre l’Art des idées éternelles, né de l’inspiration divine, formé de beauté intellectuelle et de pure voyance.
Assujettis aux lois d’évolution, amenant la chute du mercantilisme, les peuples de notre pays adoptif seront élevés à l’Art, posant ainsi les fondations d’une foi et d’une civilisation nouvelles où régnerait la Sagesse, édificatrice de beautés, où l’artiste serait prêtre: « Lorsque je serai élevé, j’attirerai tout à moi. »
RÈGLEMENT
Chaque artiste conservera une entière liberté quant à ses idées propres en Art, sa croyance religieuse, ses opinions et sa vie intime. Mais en tant que sociétaire, il sera gouverné par Trois Idées Fondamentales, au nom desquelles tout artiste a le droit de solliciter son admission dans la Colonie. Ces idées sont les lois immuables, sans elles la Colonie ne saurait exister.
I.—Renonçant à tout égoïsme, à tout dédain, s’unir pour créer individuellement et collectivement un Art pour l’amour pur de l’Art, un Art devant exprimer la plus haute aspiration de l’âme.
II.—Consacrer une partie de la journée au travail manuel afin que chacun subvienne à son entretien personnel.
III.—Refouler l’amour de soi, la jalousie, l’envie, la malice et l’esprit de discorde, et vivre autant que possible la vie digne d’un artiste.
Chaque artiste se fera gloire de défendre ces trois idées, et le symbole qu’elles représentent, véritable blason à ses yeux, sera l’expression de l’Art sur cette terre. Un ornement, d’un dessin et of appropriate design and color, or an emblem, may be worn as a decoration on some part of the dress adopted by him.
All questions and controversies shall be considered as belonging to one of two planes, to be decided accordingly. The first shall be the highest plane and of the soul. Matters of Art, Sentiment, Charity, Support of the Sick and Infirm, Education of Children, etc., shall be settled in this plane without debate, the colonist writing his pure and unselfish opinion, free from malice, and unsigned, as an address to the highest and most sacred idea he knows, depositing it to be read by the others and settled by silent vote. The Three Ideas shall rule this plane. All matters concerning manual labor, economy, exchange, etc., shall be settled by discussion and vote. The First Plane shall have the rule over this.
The musician, painter, poet, or sculptor, although free to carry out his own ideals of Art, has no right to give out any work or monument outside of his own house, that is, on colony commons, without the consent of the entire colony, the refusal of one person sufficing as a veto. That which is once given for the colony cannot be removed by him, neither can it be removed against his will, unless by the desire of all the rest. All should be united in the choosing of the position occupied by any work, or in the desire for the representation of any musical composition or drama. The quarrels and disputes of inartistic men do not apply to us. Although, as artists, our differences of opinion may be strong, the purity of our motives and our unselfish love of Art will reconcile them.
d’une couleur appropriés, ou un emblème, pourra être porté comme une décoration au costume adopté par chacun.
Toutes les questions et controverses seront considérées comme appartenant à deux plans, et discutées dans cet ordre. Le premier plan sera le plus élevé et celui de l’âme. Tout ce qui dépend le plus de l’Art, du Sentiment, de la Charité, de l’Assistance aux malades et aux infirmes, de l’Education des enfants, etc., sera réglé sans débats sur ce plan, le sociétaire écrira son opinion non signée sans tenir compte de ses intérêts personnels et sans intentions comminatoires, au nom de son idéal le plus élevé et le plus sacré, et il le soumettra à la lecture de ses frères et à leur vote silencieux. Les Trois Idées règleront ce plan. Toutes les choses relatives au travail manuel, répartition, échange, etc., seront réglées au moyen du vote après discussion. Ce plan-ci sera réglé par le premier.
Les musiciens, les peintres, les poètes ou les sculpteurs, quoique libres d’exécuter leur propre idéal en Art, ne peuvent pas placer une œuvre ou un monument en dehors de leur propre demeure, c’est-àdire de la Colonie, sans le consentement de tous les sociétaires, le refus d’une seule personne suffit pour que l’interdiction soit prononcée. Ce qui est une fois donné pour la communauté ne peut être repris par le donateur, ni être enlevé contre la volonté dudit, mais seulement si la collectivité le désire. Tous devront se mettre d’accord lorsqu’il s’agira de choisir un emplacement pour une œuvre, ou d’accepter l’interprétation d’une composition musicale ou dramatique. Les querelles et disputes des hommes inesthétiques ne sauraient avoir lieu chez nous. Quoique nos divergences d’opinions artistiques soient intenses, la pureté de nos objectifs et notre pur amour de l’Art les concilieront toutes.
Admission des membres.58—Dans le but de préserver notre haut étendard de l’Art et de l’Idéalisme, l’admission des membres est considérée comme tout à fait sacrée, elle sera décidée sur le plan de plus Haut et réglée par les Trois Idées. Chaque sociétaire, encore une fois, devra se dépouiller de ses sentiments trop personnels et rester simple, sans faiblesse, prêt à défendre et à propager l’idéal le plus
Women.—There shall be a perfect equality between women and men, and women shall have a voice in all matters (as souls; the colonists have no sex). A wife shall feel herself an independent self-supporting artist, choosing a manual occupation adapted to her physical strength, not depending on her husband; nor should he impose upon her the never-accounted-for small duties of the household. If she have full care of the children, the support of the entire family would devolve upon the husband.
Children.—Children shall be at the expense and care of their parents until such time as they shall be old enough to be responsible and do real labor for their own food and clothing, and to record hoursin so doing. As young children they may go to the fields with their parents, to help them as much as they are capable of, the parents instructing them in practical farming. As soon as they show an inclination to study or follow the calling of any colonist, that colonist shall receive them fraternally at certain times as pupils, and impart to them his knowledge of they prove themselves worthy. And so shall our children help on Art and our labors. Such children, growing up naturally, with the idea of being self-supporting and free to follow their own aspirations, would become strong, simple, Art-loving souls. Every artist knows the mistakes and sufferings of his childhood, when forced to work and learn without an ideal in view, pampered and spoiled by reliance on parents who would make of him a small copy of themselves; raised to prudence and commercial nonentity, at last breaking away to follow the promptings of his own soul, which he wished to do from the first. The first principles of mathematics could be given to the child at the school of the district. The children could, if they chose, study subjects of their own fancy from books at hand, and form their own education by their own efforts and the sacré de l’Art, il votera solennellement et silencieusement. Dûment proposé et soutenu par deux membres qui répondront de lui, il devra prendre connaissance, avant son introduction, des principes de la communauté. Aucune admission ne pourra être prononcée sans un vote unanime.
Femmes.—Une parfaite égalité régnera entre les femmes et les hommes, et elles auront voix dans toutes les délibérations (en tant qu’âmes, les colonistes n’ont pas de sexe). L’épouse doit se sentir une artiste indépendante et capable de subvenir à ses besoins, prenant une occupation manuelle adaptée à ses forces physiques, de telle sorte qu’elle ne dépendra pas de son mari; les petits devoirs domestiques si accaparants et dont on tient si peu compte ne lui seront point imposés. Si le soin des enfants lui incombe, le mari doit supporter la charge de la famille entière.
Enfants.—Les enfants seront à la charge de leurs parents jusqu’à l’âge où ils seront conscients et en état de travailler pour leur entretien propre et de marquer les heures ainsi passées. Pendant leur enfance, ils peuvent accompagner leurs parents aux champs, les aider dans la mesure de leurs forces naissantes, et il appartient aux parents de les former pratiquement à la vie agricole. Aussitôt qu’un enfant montre des dispositions pour suivre la vocation de quelque sociétaire, celuici doit le recevoir fraternellement d’une façon périodique comme disciple, et lui faire partager ses connaissances, s’il le reconnaît apte à les recevoir. Ainsi nos enfants se développent naturellement, avec l’idée d’assurer l’indépendance de leur vie et, libres de suivre leurs aspirations, deviendront des âmes fortes, simples et aimant l’Art.59 Les premiers principes de mathématiques peuvent être donnés aux enfants à l’école du district. Ils pourraient, à leur gré, étudier des matières de leur choix, avec l’aide de leurs éducateurs et faire leur éducation par leurs efforts personnels, libres de quitter la Colonie aid of their masters, being free to go from the colony and seek other experiences if they choose. If they do not desire to become artists, as mere bread-laborers they shall have no right to occupy colony houses, but shall belong to the household of their parents until they are old enough to go elsewhere. They shall have no claim by right of birth to the house and land occupied by their parents, nor to their works of Art, except what may be their parents’ private work, wealth, and possessions, which do not concern the colony in any way.
Servants.—Such colonists as have private means are free to hire servants for their household or to care for their children, but never to supplant them in their work in the fields; and no houses shall be built for such or other outsiders.
Models and workmen for sculptors and painters shall be at the latter’s private expense.
Every colonist or family shall have a house alone, if he or they so desire; the Art Befriender would only be expected to supply a simple dwelling. All other accommodation, for servants, etc., as well as their keep, shall be at the private expense of the colonist. The idea is to maintain small farms which shall form altogether one large one, for those who have done with the luxury of civilization.
Fund.—It will perhaps be necessary for each to raise a trifle more than enough for actual consumption, against old age, sickness, losses, charities, repairs, and outside-colony expenses. All such surplus shall be deposited by each colonist; and if it be found that anyone has contributed more than his share it shall be returned to him in hours.
All surplus of perishable produce, such as eggs, vegetables, etc., may be taken to the nearest town and sold at the prevailing prices; and such necessaries as oil, sugar, medicines, tea, and coffee can be bought with the money and retailed to the others at cost in hours.
et de continuer ailleurs leurs expériences. Ceux qui ne désireraient pas devenir artistes n’auront pas le droit d’occuper les demeures de la Colonie, en tant que simples travailleurs, mais ils appartiendront à la maison de leurs parents jusqu’à ce qu’ils aient l’âge d’aller ailleurs. Ils n’auront aucun droit sur la demeure et la terre de leurs parents, ni sur les œuvres d’art de ceux-ci; leurs droits seront restreints aux objets qui sont la propriété des parents, person-nellement, et qui ne concernent en rien la communauté. Serviteurs.—Les sociétaires en état d’avoir des serviteurs sont libres de les conserver pour l’entretien de leurs demeures et les soins à donner aux enfants, ils ne pourront jamais se faire remplacer par eux dans les travaux matériels, et il ne sera pas fait d’habitation spéciale pour les serviteurs, ni pour aucune personne du dehors.
Les modèles et les ouvriers seront à la charge des sculpteurs et des peintres qui les emploieront.
Chaque sociétaire ou chaque famille pourra jouir d’une demeure particulière; mais on n’attend pas du donateur ami de l’Art autre chose que de simples demeures. Tout ce qui concerne les serviteurs, entretien, etc., sera aux frais personnels du sociétaire qui les aura à son service. Le projet des fondateurs est de réunir des métairies pour composer une grande ferme et cette ferme attend ceux qui en ont fini avec le luxe des civilisations.
Fonds de réserve.—Il sera nécessaire de produire un peu plus que ne l’exigerait notre consommation actuelle, afin de soutenir la vieillesse, de soigner les malades, de remplir les devoirs de charité, de faire face aux dépenses exigées par les dommages, les réparations nécessaires et les achats inévitables au dehors de la Colonie.
Tout surcroît de production sera déposé par les sociétaires; et s’il se trouve que quelqu’un ait produit au-delà de sa tâche ordinaire, on lui en tiendra compte au moyen d’un équivalent basé sur le système des heures expliqué plus haut. Tout surcroît de produits périssables, œufs, légumes, etc., peut être porté au marché le plus proche et vendu au prix courant; l’argent de cette vente sera affecté à l’acquisition de ce que la Colonie ne pourrait produire, comme le pétrole, le thé, le café, les médicaments, etc., et ces matières seront livrées en détail aux sociétaires pour une somme d’heures équivalente à leur valeur.
Painters and sculptors requiring material other than that which can be produced in the colony, if they have no private means, will be obliged to raise extra produce to procure the same. An artist shall expect no pecuniary help from the colony in the execution of his works, unless it be the united wish of the colony.
Amendments.—Only a unanimous vote can make amendments to existing laws (excepting the Three Ideas) or make new ones.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR OF THE ARENA
The foregoing “Appeal” was sent to us from Paris accompanied by a letter, from which the following is an extract:
PARIS, 14 November, 1896.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARENA
DEAR SIR,—I have the honor to represent a body of artists sending you the manuscript composed by them, which they feel you will be pleased to publish for them in your review, believing the latter to be the most sympathetic to such an ideal movement, and that among your readers in America they will awaken the most interest.
J. M. Durand
203 Boulevard Raspail, Paris.
A more recent letter states that the Society is now organized, and that it includes one practical farmer among its members. Any person desiring to receive more particular information of this Artists’ Colony, with the idea of cooperating with its members, will be put in communication with them or their correspondent for America on sending his letter to the care of the Editor of THE ARENA. The progress of this remarkable socialistic experiment will doubtless be watched with sympathetic interest by the whole civilized world.
S’il arrive que les peintres et les sculpteurs aient besoin d’un matériel que la Colonie ne puisse produire, ils se le procureront, à défaut de moyens personnels, par un surcroît de travail. Un artiste ne doit attendre aucune aide pécuniaire de la communauté pour l’exécution de ses œuvres, à oins que tous les sociétaires n’en manifestent le désir.
Amendements.—Il n’y a qu’un vote unanime qui puisse apporter des amendements à ce règlement (exception faite des Trois Idées reconnues immuables) ou des additions nouvelles.
Un petit groupe international d’artistes est déjà formé et s’est efforcé de se procurer le terrain nécessaire au développement de la colonie.
***
Tout artiste désireux de collaborer à ce projet devra écrire, pour supplément d’informations, au secrétaire de l’œuvre aux soins du Directeur de la Plume, 31, rue Bonaparte, Paris.
Notes de bas de page
1 The author can be contacted at the following email address:schmigalle2000@yahoo.de
2 Max Dauthendey, Gedankengut aus meinen Wanderjahren, 2 Vols. (München: Albert Langen, 1913), hereafter Gedankengut. The translations of the quotations are mine.
3 Gedankengut, Vol. 2, 55.
4 Ibid., 56.
5 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 56–55. Ithell Colquhoun’s version is slightly different: ‘On the way Dauthendey, who was short-sighted, dropped his glasses down a gutter-drain so could not see what was happening and slept peacefully through the historic occasion’. See her Sword of Wisdom: MacGregor Mathers and ‘Golden Dawn’ (London: Neville Spearman, 1975), 85. While Coloquhoun clearly embroidered some of her stories, she did know both Yeats and Mathers, and this detail has the ring of something told to her by Yeats possibly in his old age. They had met in 1937, see CL InteLex 6919.
6 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 161.
7 Ellic Howe, The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887-1923 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 200. Hereafter ‘Magicians’.
8 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 220.
9 Ibid., 225-43.
10 Max Dauthendey, Ein Herz im Lärm der Welt. Briefe an Freunde (München: Albert Langen and Georg Müller, 1933), 144-46. From now on quoted as Herz.
11 On the meanings of these mottoes, see below n. 9.
12 This street runs between the Boulevard Montparnasse and the Rue Raspail, close to the Montparnasse cemetery. In the 1890s it was a quiet street, then still divided into two cul-de-sacs (separated by the park of a convent), where no vehicles were allowed to enter. It was therefore a favorite of both French and foreign artists and writers. The Durands, in 1894, lived at number 11; the Dauthendeys, recently married, in 1896, lived at number 6, almost opposite. They all, including Strindberg, Edvard Munch and many others, had their meals at Madame Charlotte’s Crèmerie, Rue de la Grande Chaumière, a very short walk from there.
13 See ‘A Symbolical Drama in Paris’, Yeats’s review in The Bookman, April 1894 (CW9 234 and ff.). See also Warwick Gould, ‘Yeats and Symbolism’, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry, ed. Fran Brearton and Alan Gillis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 20-41.
14 In the Membership Roll of the Isis-Urania Outer Order the so-called ‘Hebrew’ motto for Durand is clearly ‘Judah’ in English (GBR 1991 GD 2/2/2). As initiated into the Inner Order the name is written on the vellum in Hebrew, in very uncertainly inked and corrected characters, as if done neither with a decent pen nor by a scribe familiar with Hebrew. Mrs Durand’s motto is ‘En Hakkore’, which she takes from Judges 15:19, viz., ‘Then God opened up the hollow place in Lehi, and water came out of it. When Samson drank, his strength returned and he revived. So the spring was called En Hakkore, and it is still there in Lehi’. Her motto translates as “fountain of the crier”. There is a note in the G D address book which records simply ‘away’ for her. The original membership rolls of the Outer and Inner Orders of the Golden Dawn, GBR 1991 GD 2/2/2 and GBR 1991 GD 2/2/7a-b, held in the Freemasons’ Hall Library, London WC2.
15 Magicians, 295.
16 Ibid., 156. See The Golden Dawn Companion: A Guide to the History, Structure, and Workings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, compiled and introduced by R. A. Gilbert (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1986), 152. Sebastiano Fusco claims that Max Dauthendey, too, was a member of the Golden Dawn and offers: ‘Maxima Virtus—M. V.—James M. Durand. Mirum in Modum—M. I. M.—Max Dauthendey. Multa Cum Spe—M. C. S.—Mrs. Theodosia Durand’. See his Insegnamenti magici della Golden Dawn: rituali, documenti segreti, testi dottrinali (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 2007), 242. However, the source of Fusco’s mottoes and of the information that Dauthendey was a member remains obscure and cannot be reconciled with the original records cited in n. 9, above.
17 ‘Most of the 1800–1900 given names in our family are French-Canadian in origin (Pierre, Nazaire, etc.) […] The ‘given’ name of James, in the 1800’s, suggests to me that James is one of the English Durands—a clan that is not connected to our Jean Durand lineage’, explains Roger Durand in the name of the Durand Heritage Foundation (Message to the author by e-mail, 5 October 2015).
18 ‘Funeral Held for Widow of Jurist’, Oakland Tribune, 4 January 1929; ‘Brother and Sister United’, Macon-Chronicle Herald, 22 June 1932. My thanks to Mike Durand for providing these articles from the database of the Durand Heritage Foundation.
19 Edan Milton Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940 (San Francisco: Hughes Publishing Company, 1986), 161. The online version of the dictionary offers some additional information: ‘Mme. Durand graduated from the Government Fine Arts School in Paris. She taught art at the University of Washington prior to moving to California […was] director of the CSFA [California School of Fine Arts] in 1918’. See http://www.askart.com/artist/Theodosia_Durand/10015490/Theodosia_Durand.aspx, page consulted 10 October 2015.
20 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 199.
21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lewis_Tiffany#Personal_life, page consulted 10 October 2015.
22 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 222.
23 Hermann Georg Wendt, Max Dauthendey. Poet-Philosopher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 38-39, n. 22; from now on quoted as Dauthendey.
24 Karl Wilhelm Obrath, The Image of Mexico in Germanic Imaginative Literature (Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati Press, 1975), 198, n. 15.
25 Volker Zenk, Innere Forschungsreisen. Literarischer Exotismus in Deutschland zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Oldenburg: Igel Verlag Wissenschaft, 2003), 348, n. 11.
26 See pp. 312-33. The French version concludes with the following sentence: ‘Un petit groupe international d’ artistes est déjà formé et s’est efforcé de se procurer le terrain nécessaire au développement de la colonie’ (A small international group of artists has already formed and has made an effort to obtain the necessary ground for the development of the colony), while in the English version, an endnote added by the editor of The Arena states that ‘the Society is now organized, and […] it includes one practical farmer among its members’.
27 This was the address of the Grand Hôtel de la Haute Loire, where Yeats resided in January 1897 (CL2 70, n. 1), and Dauthendey in May of the same year (Herz, 144).
28 The Dauthendey archive of the city of Würzburg, in a section called ‘Gründung einer Colonie sich selbsterhaltender Künstler’, keeps a total of nine prepublication versions of the ‘Manifesto ‘: three manuscripts in German in the writing of Dauthendey, two manuscripts in English in the writing of James Durand, two manuscripts in Swedish in the writing of Dauthendey’s wife Annie Johansson, and two typescripts in Swedish. One of the English manuscripts corresponds exactly to the printed version of The Arena; the other is a fragment of it. One of the German manuscripts is an exact translation of the printed French version of La Plume; another one, dated ‘Paris September 96’ records discussions about the selection of a site for the colony.
29 Benjamin Orange Flower was the founder of The Arena and its editor in 1889–96. In 1897, John Clark Ridpath assumed editorship.
30 Franz Blei, Zeitgenössische Bildnisse (Amsterdam: Allert de Lange, 1940), 111. From now on quoted as Bildnisse.
31 Henry James, Hawthorne (London: Macmillan, 1879), 77.
32 Letter of George Ripley to Ralph Waldo Emerson, November 1840, quoted in Sterling F. Delano, Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 34, 61, 115. From now on quoted as Brook Farm.
33 Delano, Brook Farm, 35, 69–70.
34 Ibid., 53, 66–67.
35 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance, ed. Seymour Gross and Rosalie Murphy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), 61.
36 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 46–48.
37 Orestes Brownson, Review of The Blithedale Romance, Brownson’s Quarterly Review (October 1852), quoted in: Benjamin Franklin V. (ed.), Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Documentary Volume (New York: Thomson Gale, 2003), 193.
38 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 229-30.
39 Delano, Brook Farm, 35, 69-70.
40 Gedankengut, vol. 2, 222.
41 ‘Aufforderung zu einer Künstlerkolonie‘, manuscript n. 7, Würzburg, my translation (see above note 20).
42 Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, Fortune’s Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt (New York: William Morrow, 2013), 274, 276.
43 Foster Coates, ‘Scholar of Plutocracy. George Washington Vanderbilt Woos Wisdom in Luxury. Croesus and Scaliger in one—Traits of the Wealthiest Suitor Who Ever Neglected Venus For Minerva’, The Galveston Daily News (Houston, Texas), 27 August 1893.
44 Vanderbilt, Fortune’s Children, 271.
45 Ibid., p. 277.
46 Gedankengut, vol. 2, pp. 230-31.
47 Blei, Bildnisse, p. 112.
48 Claude Dumas, Justo Sierra y el México de su tiempo, 1848-1912 (México: UNAM, 1992), vol. 1, 391-92 (my translation). See also Jesús Rábago, Historia del gran crimen (México: Tip. de El Partido Liberal, 1897), and for a recent study, Claudio W. Lomnitz, ‘Mexico’s First Lynching: Crime, Moral Panic, Dependency’, Critical Historical Studies 1:1 (2014), 85-123.
49 The Arena [Boston] 17 (1897), 642–51. The footnotes in this manifesto are James Durand’s.
50 La Plume [Paris], 1 January 1897, 10-15. The footnotes in this manifesto are James Durand’s.
51 A study of those countries which have produced an Eternal Art, such as Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, will show that their climates were all the same—that is, warm but energy-giving.
52 As Art has rarely ever flourished in two countries in the same era, it is as if we must unite ourselves to the destiny of the place most worthy and favorable to Art.
53 En examinant les pays qui ont produit un art éternel, l’Égypte, l’Inde, la Grèce, l’Italie méridionale, on se rend compte que leur climat était presque identique et celui-là était doux et vivifiant.
54 Comme l’Art n’a jamais fleuri dans deux pays différents à la même époque, c’est comme si nous devions nous unir à la destinée de l’endroit actuel le plus favorable à l’Art et le plus digne.
55 Such ideas will be, of course, open to discussion and experiment.
56 Les idées sont naturellement ouvertes à la discussion et à l’expérimentation.
57 La colonie possédera les médicaments nécessaires pour remédier aux accidents et aux maladies les moins graves; pour les cas difficiles, elle se mettra en rapport avec un médecin.
58 Editor’s note: this paragraph is lacking in the Boston version. An eye-skip by the translator, perhaps?
59 Chaque artiste se souvenant des erreurs et des douleurs de son enfance, lorsqu’il était forcé de travailler et d’apprendre sans idéal en vue, gâté et corrompu par la direction passive et molle imprimée par les parents, toujours désireux de faire une petite copie d’eux-mêmes; élevé dans un sentiment de prudence exagéré et ridicule, et dans la crainte et le dédain de toute activité personnelle, et enfin obligé à recommencer sa vie pour suivre les impulsions premières de son âme.
Auteur
Now retired, was a librarian at the Badische Landesbibliothek, Karlsruhe, Germany. He was also for some years (1988–94) a professor of literature and library science at the Universidad Centroamericana, Managua, Nicaragua. He has written about the literature of the Spanish Civil War (Malraux, Hemingway, Arthur Koestler) and has published critical editions of the prose works of Rubén Darío. Email: schmigalle2000@yahoo.de
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