Frank Harris: My Life And Loves, vol 5

As I sailed out of the harbor, I indeed felt that I was leaving a part of myself buried eternally in that wonderful land.

A friend who has just read this volume tells me that one omission surprises him. “Why have you written nothing of the scenery and nothing about the great temples or works of art in India, China and Japan?” he asked. “I had thought you would have given us deathless impressions of them, but there is not one word! Why?”

“I am afraid Bernard Shaw's criticism of me is finally correct,” I said. “He wrote, you know, that if I were as good a critic of the second rate and third rate as I was of the first rate, I should be the greatest critic that ever lived. So it is with me about scenery and about great works of art. I remember the first time I saw the cathedral of Chartres: I stood before it for hours and cried like a child.”

It was one of the great moments of my life. The cathedrals at Amiens and at Beauvais impressed me, too, but Chartres had a sort of personal appeal, as if the maker was full of emotion in his own creation. The cathedral at Reims, too, made a great impression on me. I have seen them a hundred times since and always with the same admiration. But nothing in India, China or Japan gave me an emotion like this. Even Strasbourg or Cologne, or Mon Reale did not appeal to me in the same way.

I can only say that Chartres seemed to me like a hymn of joy in stoneand I must make another sad confession. I was next impressed by one or two of the great buildings in America. I think if you saw one of those buildings put in an open place, you would be enormously impressed by it, in spite of its utilitarian ugliness; there is something magnificently grandiose in it that moves the soul.

But you will say the scenery, at least in India, might have been described. It is true, I thought Cashmere as beautiful as Switzerland, and the Himalayan Mountains were wonderful again and again. But I have never described Switzerland, so why should I describe Cashmere?

It is only the strange or the ineffable that really appeals to me. I could talk about the Inland Lakes in Japan for hours. They are not only very beautiful in themselves, but always mixed up with little views of the charming, courteous, naughty people who have no morality but live beautifully.

What is the good of word-pictures of places? I always have the feeling it is impossible to give a scenery by words: One speaks of a hillside covered with golden gorse, or of a great cliff, or of snow peaks in the further distance, but to conjure up the beautiful scene is beyond the power of words.

I know nothing of natural beauty that was astonishing in China, and wish rather to forget what I did see than to remember. Japan is the only land in all the East that touched my heart, and its beauties, as I said, are always connected with the charming people.

But all that is probably my limitation. I am sure that if Ruskin had seen one tenth of what I have seen, he would have given wonderful pictures in words.

But I think more of one extraordinary person and find more wonders in one soul and heart like that of Meredith or Dowson than in a thousand scenes belauded in all the guide books. One phrase of Meredith, his laughter, the light in his eyes as he recited his own poetry gave me unforgettable emotions. Perhaps Dowson said it best:

I should be glad of loneliness,

And hours that go on broken wings,

A thirsty body, a tried heart,

And the unchanging ache of things,

If I could make a single song

As lovely and as full of light,

As hushed and brief as a falling star,

On a winter night.