MEMOIRS, CONVERSATIONS AND DIARIES
535
diary to Gide and Gide was fascinated by it. Spender's friendly and
very circumspect portraits of living people were by some considered
"scandalous." An author would probably be outlawed for
keeping in
his mind,
to say nothing of his journal, the following quotation from
Flaubert found in the Goncourt work:
"When I was young my vanity was such that if I found myself in a
brothel with friends, I would choose the ugliest girl and would insist
upon lying with her before them all without taking the cigar out of
my mouth. It was no fun at all for me; I did it for the gallery."
The peculiar sanctity that surrounds our image of Flaubert, the un–
equaled purity of the man and his art, are not altered by this naked
bit
of anecdote.
Frank Harris, who clearly modeled his volumes on the Goncourts',
is, one gathers, either in oblivion or, when remembered, in disrepute.
This ineffable being has certain qualifications as a "portraitist," but
they are nearly all erased by his incurable English, or American,
moralizing. Harris is extremely sensitive to an "opportunity"; at a
meeting he approaches the celebrity with the dignified and plausible
expectancy of a relative at a promising deathbed. He does not pre–
tend to be disinterested, or himself a mere nothing; but he can say
in all honesty that he
cares.
And this is true: he is passionately in–
terested in famous people. His "coverage" is wide and international,
his narration of anecdote and description of character entertaining,
even if he does like to frill the edges with "winebearers at the banquet
of life," and to add all sorts of conversational pockets which seem
designed merely to repeat his own name. "Do you see that, Frank?"
or "I will tell you a story, Frank." Harris' great trouble is that he
never misses a chance to point out a "flaw" in his subject's
dis–
course. One gets not only Shaw's very interesting claim for his own
dramatic Caesar over Shakespeare's, but Harris' long-winded de–
fense of Shakespeare against Shaw. Harris wants you to know he will
not hesitate to seek out the great
and
will not allow the greatest of
them to get by with "nonsense." Without indicating his refusal to
agree or to practice an amiable silence, perhaps he could not have
justified his exorbitant pursuit. This is very nearly fatal both for the
drama and the humor of his portraits. Here is a bit of nightmare
