“Mme. Loie Fuller, whom I have admired for a number of years, is, to my mind, a woman of genius, with all the resources of talent,” so wrote the master from Meudon on January 19, 1908.
“All the cities in which she has appeared, including Paris, are under obligations to her for the purest emotions. She has reawakened the spirit of antiquity, showing the Tanagra figurines in action. Her talent will always be imitated, from now on, and her creation will be reattempted over and over again, for she has re-created effects and light and background, all things which will be studied continually, and whose initial value I have understood.
“She has even been able, by her brilliant reproduction, to make us understand the Far East.
“I fall far below what I ought to say about this great personality; my language is inept for that, but my artistic heart is grateful to her.”
Less grateful, certainly, than I am to the man who wrote these lines. I am, nevertheless, happy to have been able to bring together on the same page the names of two masters of form who have influenced me profoundly and whom I revere affectionately.
XII
M. GROULT’S COLLECTION
ONE beautiful summer afternoon I was driven to a house in the Boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly. From afar off I heard the sound of hunting-horns, and I wondered in what part of Neuilly it was possible to follow the hounds. That was certainly a novelty.
The carriage stopped.
We were at the house of the charming Rachel Boyer, of the Comédie-Française, who had invited me to a matinee. Before reaching the house I crossed a great garden, still pursued by the sound of hunting-horns that were clearly coming nearer. While I was wondering again where the huntsmen could be riding I reached the house.
The mistress of the establishment received me with the greatest cordiality. Rachel Boyer is a charming soul. She beams like a ray of sunlight.