"I Love Them"

33 REVIEW "I Love Them" Katherine Lyon Mix. Max and the Americans (Brattleboro, Vermont ι Stephen Greene P, 1974"T.~fT2.95. Max Beerbohm visited America but once. In I895, he crossed the Atlantic with the acting troupe led by his half-brother Herbert Beerbohm Tree; their three-month tour brought them to New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Boston. Beerbohm's visit included one memorable momentt while he was in Chicago, he heard the news of Oscar Wilde's arrest in London, and almost simultaneously he found himself about to propose marriage to a young actress in Tree's company . By the evidence of his letters, we can say that he enjoyed himself in America, but he never wished to return here and more than once turned down good offers from lecture-circuit entrepreneurs. He had a horror of American politics, American newness, American progress, American wealth, American noise. Nonetheless, like many another Englishman, he found this country hard to ignore, and Americans played important roles in his life. He had many friends and admirers and readers and collectors here 1 he regarded Henry James as his literary Master; he married an American woman. Mrs. Mix has taken for her theme Beerbohm's complex and contradictory relations with American men and manners. She records that in 1930 she wrote Beerbohm an admiring letter; his reply included this sentence ; "I can't stand America at any price, but Americans (of whom my Wife is one), are quite another matter; and (if Mr. Mix will allow me to say so to you) I love them." "Perhaps," Mrs. Mix writes, "that is the thesis of this book." Indeed it is, Mrs. Mix has developed no theory of Beerbohm's attitude to America, has not connected it to similar attitudes expressed by Matthew Arnold or Oscar Wilde or any other Englishmen; she has rather concentrated on Beerbohm's relations with specific Americans, and especially with his wife. She recounts his journey here, and she tries to document all of the contacts he made with Americans during the course of his long life. She discusses his writings only when they deal with American matters or because they were printed in American magazines or when they ware reviewed by American reviewers. Inevitably, her plan sometimeβ results in passages of pure patchwork, but Mrs. Mix has, by concentrating on her best material, avoided the worst dangers of her approach. Some of the Americans Beerbohm knew - Henry Harland, Frank Harris, John Singer Sargent - remain interesting people; Beerbohm has left enlightening caricatures, letters, and critiques that deal with them, and Mrs. Mix uses whatever is available. Her freshest material and her best writing come into play when she introduces Florence Kahn into the narrative. This woman, who was to be Max Beerbohm's wife, had a successful career on the American stage for some years before her marriage. Mrs. Mix has done 34 considerable research among the Kahn family archives, and her book's most important contribution is the biography it offers of Florence Kahn. Miss Kahn spent her girlhood as the darling of a remarkable family» "'The Kahns had ninety percent of the brains in Tennessee,' said an old friend of the family, 'and Florence was all brains.'" Schoolgirl ambitions led her into school theatrics ; then, after a year at what was to become the Memphis Conservatory , she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, After graduating in I897, she scored several successes. Appearances in serious plays by Echergay and Ibsen were decisive for her; she became known as a serious actress and as a "genius." She was, however, too much her own woman to endure the whims of leading actor-managers, and her career sometimes suffered setbacks as a result. In 1904, she decided to try her luck in London. Her only theatrical success there was to win the heart of the dramatic critic of the Saturday Review. Max Beerbohm ; he was at that time thirty-two years old, he had just suffered his second unsuccessful engagement, and he was charmed by the young actress. When she returned to New York without having found any parts, he corresponded regularly with her. In New York...