and Henry Brewster

The relationship between composer Ethel Smyth and American philosopher, poet and aesthete Henry Brewster (1850-1908) was, according to Ethel herself, the most important of her life. Their lasting friendship, ended only with Henry’s death in 1908. However, Henry was married to Julia, Lisl von Herzogenberg’s sister, and their relationship caused a permanent rift with the Herzogenbergs much to Ethel’s despair as they had been close friends and Heinrich, Lisl’s husband, was her musical tutor for some years. However, from 1890 and especially after Lisl’s death in 1892, the relationship was renewed and much valued by Ethel. There was extensive debate and correspondence between them, and they spent time together in Italy, France and England. In addition to debates on the arts and philosophy, Henry assisted with the libretti for Ethel’s first two operas, ‘Fantasio’ and ‘’ and he wrote the libretto for her operatic masterpiece ‘’ (originally in French, his preferred language): his philosophical poem ‘The Prison’ was used by Ethel as the basis for her last major work, her choral symphony of the same name.

The following excerpts all taken verbatim from Ethel’s books of memoires describe the background to and depth of this important friendship in her own words. Passages concerning Lisl von Herzogenberg and Julia Brewster where they had a significant impact on the relationship are included.

L.E. Orchard, Volunteer, Surrey History Centre.

A few explanatory comments, where appropriate, are given in italics.

The sources of the excerpts are given by acronyms for the individual books as follows: ITR Impressions that Remained; Longmans, Green, 1919 SOL Streaks of Life; Longmans, Green, 1921 FBOB Final Burning of Boats; Longmans, Green 1928 FPIE Female Pipings in Eden; Peter Davies 1933 ATWO As Time Went On; Longmans, Green 1936

1. Background

Of the other couple of prospective friends, the Brewsters, I had of course learned a great deal from Lisl (von Herzogenberg), her deep admiration for her extraordinary sister being the main theme of many letters. It appeared that these relations were super-humans and that they lived in an Ivory Tower, knowing not a soul in Florence except the Hildebrands....I knew that Julia Brewster was eleven years older than her husband...and heard about their extraordinary views on marriage which did not commend themselves to Lisl...It appeared that they had only gone through the marriage ceremony in church to avoid wounding the feelings of Julia’s family and had found it very ‘comic’ at the time – but it was not looked on as a binding engagement. If either of the couple should weary of married life or care for someone

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else, it was understood that that the bond was dissoluble, and there was a firm belief on both sides that no such event could possibly destroy, or even essentially interrupt their ‘friendship’ as they called it, founded as it was on more stable elements than mere marriage. This much I had gleaned from hearsay concerning Lisl’s relations; face to face with them I soon found out that the hermit was Julia, her husband being rather an embryonic lover of humanity, hitherto accustomed, owing to circumstances, to pay exclusive attention to abstractions. As I learned many years afterwards, Julia was beginning to notice in him a new and strange impulse to extend a furtive hand to his fellow creatures and thought it wisest to offer no opposition. (ITR p66/67)

...should one tell how the boy of sixteen fell in love with a woman eleven years his senior – a woman as strange and other-worldly as himself – vowed to marry her, and five years later accomplished his end? Or would it be wiser to evoke at once the memory of the middle-aged man he was when his English friends first came to know him? (FPIE p87)

H.B. was half English, half American, born and bred in France, and domiciled in Italy..... His hair and beard were very fair, his eyes brown and curiously wide apart, and his height, I think, 5ft.10in. His wife.....was half German and half Danish. besides which Slav blood ran in her veins.....she died in 1897 of the same hereditary heart disease that five years previously had stricken down her sister.....their home language was French and they would rather have relapsed into eternal silence than address each other in the bourgeois second person singular (FPIE p96)

2. Meeting the Brewsters and the developing relationship with Henry

Then, in 1882, irresistibly drawn southwards by a furious longing to see Italy, I wintered in Florence where dwelt Lisl’s sister Julia, whose marriage with one Henry Brewster - a man eleven years younger than herself, half American, half English, and by education and affinity a Frenchman – was based on a theory any wise woman would adopt under similar circumstances; namely, that if either of them should fall in love with someone else, it was not to be considered a tragedy nor a cause of division...... Almost immediately Harry Brewster fell in love with me, informed Julia of the fact (which appears to have been unnecessary), and with her approval went off to Africa to shoot lions and get over his infatuation. I had not the faintest suspicion of the real cause of this sporting expedition, from which he returned shortly before my departure for England, to the best of his belief, and also of Julia’s, completely cured. (ATWO p7)

My acquaintance with the man destined to become my greatest friend began, it is amusing to reflect, with ‘a little aversion’ on my part, although his personality was delightful. Having for years had no real intercourse with anyone save his wife, he was always very shy-a shyness of a well-brought-up child, and which took the form of extreme simplicity, as though he were falling back on first principles to see him through....this trait was of charming effect and in spite of it he managed to be witty,

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amusing, and when he felt one liked him, companionable. He seemed to have read all books, to have thought all thoughts; and last but not least was extremely good looking, clean shaven but for a moustache, a perfect nose and brow, brown eyes set curiously apart, and fair fluffy hair. It was the face of a dreamer and yet of an acute observer, and his manner was the gentlest, kindest, most courteous manner imaginable....Half American, half English, brought up in France, he was a passionate Latin, and the presence of an Anglo-maniac, loud in praise of the sportsman type of male, and what was worse, in love with Germany, goaded him into paradoxes and ‘boutades’ it was impossible to listen to with equanimity.....To sum up, the Brewsters came under no known category; both of them were stimulating, original talkers and quite ready to discuss their ethical scheme, including its application to domestic life, but of course only as a general thesis. (ITR p67/68)

It was H.B. who first persuaded me to study Flaubert, Baudelaire and Verlaine seriously, introduced me to Anatole France, and kindled a flame of enthusiasm for French literature generally that was an endless subject of dispute between me and Lisl - both by letter and otherwise. On that rock, however, I beat in vain; there is no bridging the gulf between Latin and Teutonic civilisation, and her aversion to French poetry is common to all Germans, though few of them express it as frankly and forcibly as did she. (ITR p75)

But in the early ‘eighties a change came over the spirit of Henry Brewster’s dream; he began to show signs of a desire to turn toward life. There now began a new life for H.B. For the first time he became, so to speak, available for humanity..... in 1893 he had come over to London to hear my . (FPIE p96/99)

(Spring 1884) Julia having now ceased to ration my visits, I saw the Brewsters constantly, and found them more and more delightful...... he is the sort of man it is impossible, besides all the rest, not to be fond of in a most comfortable way. Speaking for myself, what with comparing notes about mankind, morals, art, literature, anything and everything, what with the laughter and fighting and utter good comradeship, I have never had such a delightful relation with any man in my life (ITR p108)

3. Difficulties with Lisl and Julia

Now all this time, crippled by a mountaineering accident, I had seen little or nothing of Italy, so adopted with enthusiasm Julia’s suggestion that I should come back again in the winter. Towards the close of that second stay (May 1884) I found out that I was now in love with Harry Brewster. And if I had never suspected his former feeling for me, still less did I know that, as so often happens with a passion supposed to be cured, his had returned like a strong man armed.....I however declared, in spite of his protesting, that the incident was closed....During the course of the winter ’84-’85 which I spent at Leipzig, Harry persuaded me to reopen negotiations, Julia having assured him again and again, so he said, that she was merely waiting to be certain our mutual feeling was genuine. Twice did Harry 3

suddenly descend on Leipzig to argue with me. During these visits he succeeded in overriding my disbelief in Julia’s consent. It must be understood that Lisl was from the first sceptical as to her sister’s conditional acquiescence.... That summer she and Julia met, and for the first time spoke of the matter. Julia, calm and undefeated, declared the ‘discussion’ between her and her husband was still proceeding, and that nothing was decided, but Lisl saw that her heart was breaking. Reproached bitterly by their passionately jealous old mother (Baroness von Stockhausen), who from the first had warned Lisl against ‘that wicked English girl’ she was bidden by mother and brother to choose between them and me, and whether expressed or not, there was no longer any doubt as to Julia’s wishes (ATWO p7-10).

It may be remembered that the Brewsters held unusual views concerning the bond between man and wife, views which up to the time of my arrival on the scene had not been put to the proof by the touch of reality. My second visit to Florence was fated to supply the test. Harry Brewster and I, two natures to all appearances diametrically opposed, had gradually come to realise that our roots were in the same soil – and this I think is the real meaning of the phrase to complete one another – that there was between us one of those links that are part of the Eternity which lies before time. A chance wind having fanned and revealed at the last moment, as so often happens, what had been smouldering in either heart, unsuspected by the other, the situation had been frankly faced and discussed by all three of us; and then I learned, to my astonishment, that his feeling for me was of long standing, and that the present eventuality had not only been foreseen by Julia from the first, but frequently discussed between them. ...Julia, who believed the whole thing to be imaginary on both sides, maintained that it was incumbent to establish, in the course of further intercourse, whether realities or illusions were in question. After that ...the next step could be decided on. This view H.B. allowed was reasonable. My position, however, was, that there could be no next step, inasmuch it was my obvious duty to break off intercourse with him at once and for ever. And when I left Italy that chapter was closed as far as I was concerned. I then went to Berchtesgaden, and there, accustomed as I was to lay bare my life before her, Lisl learned all there was to know. Blame neither attached to me nor was laid at my door; we saw eye to eye in all points, and parted, as may be imagined, more closely if more tragically knit than ever. (ITR p134)

But before I had been many weeks in England it became manifest that the chapter was not closed after all and a correspondence began between my two Florentine friends and myself which continued throughout the following winter (1884-85). The point under discussion was whether my policy of cutting the cable was appropriate to this particular case, whether it would not be to the advantage of all three of us (which was H.B’s contention) that he and I should continue friends – not necessarily meeting, but at least corresponding.....but in this case, insane as we all may seem, neither were H.B. and I bent on pursuing a selfish end regardless of giving pain, nor was Julia consciously playing a part....And if asked how I came to swerve from my

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decision not even to discuss the ‘friendship’ theory, I can only say that the case was not as simple as it seems, and that a very genuine doubt existed in my mind as how I ought to act – a doubt shared at times, though I think against her better judgement, by Lisl herself.(ITR p135)

4. The break with Lisl and suspension of relations with Henry

But the fact of my having gone back on my first decision not to discuss the matter disquieted her (Lisl) profoundly....Shortly before we parted that May morning, one of her relations, I think her brother, had written to her insinuating things so unjust and cruel about me....I remember few dates, but that date, May 7 (1885), will be remembered to my dying day. As the train moved off and slowly rounded the curve, I saw Lisl waving at the window... never to see her again in this world, except in dreams. (ITR p115)

.....before the autumn leaves had fallen I was cast out of Lisl’s life and had cast Harry out of mine (ATWO p10).

For seven years my life had been as inextricably mixed up with the Herzogenberg’s lives, whether musically or humanly, as if I really had been their own child;...I wrote to her, bewildered, appealingly, in despair, and received one or two letters in reply, each colder than the last; finally on September 3 (1885), in the very words I should use today, I bade her farewell till better days should dawn, and silence fell between us – a silence to be broken by her, for one brief moment only, two years later. (ITR p140)

In the late ‘eighties the Brewsters moved to Rome, where, but for keeping in touch with Julia’s relations, the seclusion seems to have been stricter than ever. At least as regards Casa Brewster, for H.B. himself travelled, and spent a good deal of time in France. Shortly after his wife’s death (in 1897) H.B. established himself in a charming apartment on the second floor of the Palazzo Antici Mattei (FPIE p98)

Donna Laura lived in a Palazetto facing the Piazza Paganica, part of a huge block that includes the Palazzo Sermoneta, and Palazzo Antici Mattei, on one floor of which lived my friend Henry Brewster (H.B.). ...She moved about among her guests, making strangers acquainted with a frank, rapid and highly flattering sketch of their respective personalities. Mine was generally ‘a great musician and an artist all round; an intelligent girl too – rather Bohemian but a lady; and H.B. to his great amusement, as ‘un giovane molto colto’, that is a very cultivated youth’. This when the girl was over 40, and the youth...pushing 50. (SOL p148)

Then one morning came a telegram: ‘Lisl died yesterday’ (January 1892).....I forthwith wrote a letter to Julia that must have astonished her a good deal, so new was its tone. I told her that for years I had striven to repair as well as I could the harm I had done her; while she on her side had told me that my fate was none of her business. And now, thanks to her implacability, the thing of which I had ever lived in dread had happened – Lisl had died without even sending me a word of farewell. 5

‘From henceforth’, I wrote, ‘I mean to fashion my life as I choose, not giving you a thought.’....Apparently this letter of mine to which Julia made no reply did its work. There were no more hints from him that ‘perhaps’ this and ‘possibly’ that. From henceforth it was I, not she, who shaped the course of our friendship (ATWO p44).

Letter from Henry to Ethel dated Rome January 30 1892. ...Since I wrote to you Lisl is dead. Perhaps you have heard of it through the Fiedlers or Wachs. I wonder if it recalls past friendship to you, or if the breach was too wide even for memory? I could talk with you about it but am at a loss to soliloquise, because I don’t know if enmity or goodwill prevails in your heart. For this reason I did not inform you at once; also because I thought I should get a letter from you. (ITR p301)

5. The relationship renewed

Then came a crisis. That spring, just five years after our parting, and utterly unexpected as far as I was concerned, Harry and I met again. The occasion was a Crystal Palace Concert at which on April 26 (1890), August Manns introduced me to my countrymen with the production of a Serenade in four movements. And when I came forward to bow my acknowledgements, lo! in the fourth row, seated just behind my mother, was Harry!....He had not changed: still the same pale clean-cut face, the dreamy far-apart brown eyes, the abundance of soft fluffy fair hair; still the striking- looking man he had always been....After the concert we had tea together and discussed matters. If the news of that meeting at Crystal Palace had been a great shock to Mrs. Benson, a far greater one was to gather that we were contemplating a renewal of relations, though merely via the post.(ATWO p18)

A strange thing happened at that concert (Crystal Palace, 1890 at which Ethel’s orchestral Serenade in D was performed)) When summoned to the front I naturally looked towards the seats where the family were installed, and to my amazement, sitting just behind my mother was a man with a long beard whom for half a moment I did not recognise; but there was no mistaking the face I had always known as clean shaven, but for a moustache – a face I had not looked on for many years ...it was H.B. He had been passing through London on his way to America, and seeing my name on a poster had run down to the Crystal Palace. After the concert H.B. and I met in the corridor, had tea together.(ITR p240)

A moment had come – I think it must have been in 1887 – when, realising that although Casa Brewster had re-established itself more or less, Lisl would never be persuades – even if she desired it – to resume intercourse with me, I had written to Harry via his sister... to say that I found it impossible to take up my music life, could hold out no longer, and was ready to see him again. His reply was that for us to come together under the shadow of defeat would belie the high hopes with which this venture had been started. (ATWO p14)

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In December (1890) came the bend in a lane that seemed to promise no turning, and a correspondence, as between two great friends – the only matter that had been under discussion five years previously – now began between H.B. and myself.... I will only add that from now onwards our friendship became the pivot of my life – as it is today though my friend died ten years ago. ... but what has already been said will explain why I date from December 1890 the beginning of a new life.(ITR p263)

In 1902 H.B. was still a very good looking man, and the sight of him had the effect on Augusta (Holmés, the Irish composer working in Paris)) of the classical bugle-call on the demobilised warhorse. (FBOB p134).

In the summer of 1886, Ethel joined with her sister Violet and her husband Dick Hippisley on a holiday in Cornwall. Far and away the most vivid of our Cornish impressions...is a celebrated cave in the Scilly Islands called ‘The Piper’s Hole’...for me it lies in my memory wrapped in a tissue of gold, for many years afterwards. ‘The Piper’s Hole’ suggested the scene of the Third Act of my opera ‘The Wreckers’ Indeed on this tour were gathered the legend and most of the impressions which, passed on to H.B. – as one might hand rough sketches and a palette to a painter – were wrought by him into the libretto he wrote for me.(ITR p152)

Shortly afterwards it (The Wreckers) was produced at Prague, on the strength of which events in 1908 I gave a Wreckers concert in London; two acts only ,conducted by Nikisch with next to no orchestral rehearsing, and financed by my great friend, H. Brewster, who had written the libretto and was present – a dying man. (FPIE p41)

In May (1892) Harry came over to England, and whether or no because of my stern letter to Julia, our relations became the quiet, never provocatively flaunted alliance we had always aimed at as blameless minimum that ought to be conceded. We rode about.....and met privately in London, where he would take a room at one hotel for me and another at some other hotel for himself....and a week later we did the same thing in Paris....Anyone who should have known how, when and where we met, would doubtless have concluded we were lovers; and if Julia knew anything about it, probably she held that belief.....And yet, ‘for a’ that and a’ that, we were not lovers. (ATWO p56).

As I wrote to Harry, ‘Had ever woman such a friend as I have in you? Often when I think of you the tears almost come into my eyes. In some ways I enjoy being away from you more than with you – no conflict, no fighting; - just quiet knowing and feeling’. (ATWO p59)

But the development of the bond with H.B. and the dawn of my friendship with Lady Ponsonby, these two relations being the mainspring of my emotional and intellectual life during the years that followed, dwarfed everything else. Harry was at Rome and I was deep in correspondence with him about the libretto of ‘Fantasio’... (ATWO p114) 7

In June (1893), Harry...came over on the rush to deposit Clotilde (his daughter) at Cambridge for some examination connected with her impending entrance at Newnham. Up to that time she was not supposed to know anything about the triangle Harry-Julia-Ethel. Harry and I had various meetings in London diversified with gallops in Windsor Park (ATWO p208)

Once when I was abroad, H.B. and his daughter went to live at ‘One Oak’...... I could spend mine (sic) life writing about H.B.; but here I will only say he was an indulgent student of human nature, whose motto might have been ‘You never can tell!’ and who certainly took special interest in what goes on at the other side of the room.(SOL p85)

6. A deep and close relationship

From a letter from Harry to Ethel dated 1and 22 February 1893. I am firmly resolved not to make myself miserable about you because I feel to the very tips of my fingers that the air that we breathe together, with one pair of lungs, is of the mountain top or high plateau kind, belongs to the crisp golden regions above the fog. If you are playing a mean feminine trick – which in my heart of hearts I don’t believe – I mean the trick of despising me for the very obedience you exact, I shall simply let you do it....Are you astonished at so much fuss over as simple a thing as ‘Please sit on the other side of the table?....Unfortunately there are occasions when a great part of my conversational powers runs into my arms and hands, etc;...... Take as much rope as you like but don’t keep me in daily suspense for a month...tell me simply that you are going to deposit me in the cloak room for a little while... I think you can leave me in the cloak room for more than weeks at a stretch than I can leave you for hours. (ATWO p230/231)

From a letter from H.B. to E.S. dated 29 March 1893 quoted in ‘As Time Went On’ If for conversational purpose we allow that it would be ‘tragic unreason’ in your case to give in to our (mutual) natural instincts, I want you to understand that I feel ‘tragic unreason’ in privation...Well, at least love me in some unreasonable way, if not in that one which seems most natural. But, also please, very reasonably. How wearisome is the thought of passion (for more than twenty-five minutes) without all the rest – the activity, the general expansion...the fun. And how flat all this is without the passion, or some substitute for it. I should like to know what kind of substitute you are going to find for it as regards me, as soon as you have ideally lodged me once for all among the singers of the Sistine Chapel... (ATWO p236).

From a letter from H.B. to E.S .dated 19 April 1893 quoted in ‘As Time Went On’ My ambition would be not to fold you round with my love, because I think you don’t want to be folded up in anything; you would complain of stuffiness in three weeks, or twenty minutes; but to fasten it to your shoulder with your arms free, like the lion’s skin Hercules wears, with so firm a clasp you would never be able to slip it off; and so gentle a one that you would never wish to. (ATWO p236).

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From a letter from E.S. to H.B. dated 24 June 1893 I was so proud of you the other night. I always am but I haven’t often had the chance of seeing you in company of others and noting how you stand head and shoulders above them all, and how everyone I care for – my friends – feel this before you have been two minutes in the room...I have too bad a headache to write, but I love you with all my heart and soul...(ATWO p239).

And let me here remark that there had been nothing resembling love-making – in the law courts engagingly described as ‘familiarities’ – except during that fatal winter of ’84-5 when he twice turned up at Leipzig, convinced that Julia was coming round, and when we were as good-or as bad-as an engaged couple. (ATWO p253).

From a letter from H.B. to E.S. dated 31 December 1893 written during Ethel’s father’s last illness You must be tired out with the uncertainty, the hopes and fears, and the waiting for the end, which, though the best perhaps at that age, will yet be sorrowful. I keep trying to picture to myself your new life and wish I were near you. You know, darling, that you are to tell me everything and that there is to be no nonsense between us. (ATWO p323).

Harry was a dreamer, but as my readers will have gathered by no means a despiser of the joys of the flesh; and though the face was almost ultra-refined, to the eye of experience these traits could be read on it. (ATWO p169)

7. Henry’s death

Henry Brewster died at his daughter’s Clotilde’s house in South Farnborough on 13 June 1908: Ethel was present and held his hand. When H.B. was dying, the death stupor, as so often happens, yielded for a moment. At the very last he suddenly opened his eyes wide, and on his face was a look I had seen once before on the face of a dying man; that of my father. So wondering, so confident, so glad was the look, that one could almost fancy the Prisoner’s desire was fulfilled – that he saw those banners, heard that music. (FPIE p113)

From a letter dated 9 May 1914 from Ethel to Emmeline Pankhurst included in ‘Beecham and Pharaoh’ (p175) . And then two great yearnings came...for Pan and for Harry. I have had one of my fits – they generally come with rather relaxed mental states...of longing for Harry...just his smile and the way he used to say “Ethel!” when we met after a long parting;-a longing that presses slow tears out of my eyes. Is it possible to believe that two beings so woven into each other can ever lose each other? I cannot believe it; it cannot be.

L.E.Orchard, Volunteer, Surrey History Centre April 2019

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