The New York herald., 1922-10-22

years later were calling themselves some
thing else. Actually he was no mean
critic, a volume of his writings having
been taken quite seriously by some of the
least tolerant of modern men of letters.
But the American newspapers did not
take that into consideration. In his ap
pearance and mannerisms they found ma
terial for some very witty. and diverting
copy"
WITH Montesquiou came his friend
w Gabriel de Yturri, Spaniard with
similar tastes and similar "preciosities."
Their visit was with the purpose of seri-
ously delivering series of conferences on
topics entirely out of tune with modern
American life and manners. That Mon
tesquiou should be greeted with a meas
ure of good natured derision was inevita-
BILE. He understood America not in the
least, and there was utterly no chance of
his ever being taken seriously. For an
hour he and his friend caused little
ripple in society, but that was largely due
to the idle curiosity which Americans are
prone to show for the latest novelty
from the other side. But the newspaper
"gems" that were printed from time to
time concerning the poor gentleman's
plush waistcoats, his trois mouSquetdires
hat and his orchid shirt collar were pure
invention.
THAT visit is recalled now because of
L the recent publication by Lieb4r &
Lewis of j. X. Huysmans's Against the
Grain" ga Rebours'') When the book
originally appeared in Paris in 1889 the
hero, Des Esseintes, was accepted as hav-
ing been drawn straight from Montes-
quiou-Fezensac, although Huysmans en-
bellished the portrait from his own i'm
agination. "a Rebours" caused consid-
cradle of literary furry in its day, and
because of it Max Nordau picked out
Huysmans as the object of particularly
scarifying chapter in his Degeneration"
But "a Rebours" found many ardent adj
mirers, English and French. Oscar Wilde
told of his hero's enthusiasm over the
work in a chapter of "The Picture of.
Dorian Gray" George Moore said of the
author: "Huysmans goes to my soul like
a gold ornament of Byzantine workman
ship. A page of Huysmans is as
a dose of opium, glass of some exquisite
and powerful liqueur.''
II ERE, in a nutshell, is Des Esseintes,
IL the hero of "a Rebours." The
portraits of his ancestors showed stall
wart troopers and stern cavalrymen.
But as the result of two centuries of in
breeding he comes into the world an
enervated weakling, a dreamer with a
distaste for life, an idler whose fortune
spares him the necessity of serious labor.
After brief plunge into conventional
dissipation his overwrought nerves, his
neuralgia and dyspepsia drive him to
season of retirement in country house
which he fits up to soothe his fantasy and
to crafty his complex aesthetic sensations.
To quote Havelock Ellis, who contributes
the introduction to Against the Grain:
''He has tortoise curiously inlaid with
precious stones; he delights in all those
exotic plants which reveal natures most
unnatural freaks; he is sensitive anna
teur of perfumes, and considers that the
pleasures of smell are equal to those of
sight or sound; he possesses a row of
little barrels of liqueurs so arranged that
tents of this instrument, his mouth organ
he calls it, and produce harmonies which
seem to him comparable to those yielded